Insanity Squared
by flairina
Summary: Looking to recruit a new council member under the cover of a miniature school raid, Satsuki and the Elite Four head to Furinkan High. Things go about as well as could be expected.
1. Onset of Symptoms

Note: Takes place before the beginning of Kill La Kill, but after the end (failed wedding) of Ranma.

* * *

"...A lightning assault?"

The Elite Four were each individually surprised by their lady's statement, which had seemingly come entirely out of the blue. Nonon was the first to speak.

"But how come, Satsuki-chan? And on what?"

The girl in question looked up from her tea to respond. "On a high school we have not yet conquered, from the Western Kanto region."

"Eh? Aren't they still holding out against us right now?" Sanageyama asked, slightly confused.

"Yes. However, while it lies within the area, it is not within the portion actively resisting us." Satsuki replied. "This presents us with an opportunity, and it is one I am choosing to take. We will fly in by helicopter and subjugate the school before anyone even realizes what is happening."

The serious girl took another sip of her tea before continuing. "That being said, our true objective will not actually be to put the school under our control- that is merely the front we will put forward. In reality, we will be searching for someone skilled enough to join our higher ranks."

"Oh? We're trying to enlist a transfer student?" Nonon asked, pulling a flute out of her hat and absently cleaning it as she mulled this over. "So, the Elite Four may be in need of a name change soon?"

Satsuki simply nodded. Considering what they would eventually be going up against, they needed all the help they could get. Nowhere else in the country had quite as many major fighting related incidents surrounding it as this school supposedly did- surely there was someone of at least some talent there. And if not, it only helped further enhance the facade she had created until the time came to face Ragyo.

"We will be undertaking this by ourselves?" Gamagori inquired.

Satsuki nodded. "As I said, this will be Blitzkrieg- lightning war. We will come down hard, fast, and with little to no warning, although we will of course give them a chance to surrender themselves- if they actually do so, this will have been a waste of our time. Regardless, it should take less than half a day to complete, so we have no need of additional forces that will do nothing but slow us down."

"I see..." Gamagori nodded in understanding. "And where will we be going, Lady Satsuki?"

"A school known as Furinkan High."

"...Furinkan... hmm..." Inumuta pondered aloud before breaking in to a sudden fit of typing on his ever-present laptop. "Part of the Nerima ward... the area is renowned for its various esoteric fighting styles and its extremely competent construction crews. Said to be a must-visit for any martial artists wishing to prove their strength. I see why you chose this location, Lady Satsuki."

"Quick on the uptake as always, Inumuta." Satsuki noted, allowing herself a small, thin smile.

"Heh, sounds like my kinda place!" Sanageyama exclaimed as he rested his head against the couch.

Nonon smirked. "Since when was swinging around bamboo a martial art, Monkey? You're no artist, you're a thug with a stick."

"Hey! Kendo may not be a martial art, but-"

"It matters not." Gamagori cut in before an argument could start. "We must prepare ourselves. Lady Satsuki, when will we be departing?"

Satsuki closed her eyes and stood.

"Tomorrow. Dismissed."

* * *

"We are approaching Furinkan High School." the pilot stated matter-of-factly from the front seat.

Satsuki eyed the school from the window of the private helicopter. There were visible signs of battle damage around the schoolyard, but none so severe that they did more than affect the aesthetic of the place. Otherwise, it was rather peaceful, even ordinary looking... but Satsuki knew better than many not to judge solely from appearances. There was proof enough here that this was indeed a school that had seen many fights- it was time to see just where those scars had come from.

The helicopter began to descend, dangling its person-laden ladder down as the school drew closer. Student's heads were already beginning to peek out of the windows, no doubt drawn by the sound of the vehicle's blades cutting through the air.

As soon as they reached the school's perimeter wall, the four council members hanging from the ladder leaped off of it as one, landing perfectly in position on the narrow platform to frame a small center space, large enough for but a single person to stand. The helicopter's ladder withdrew as the aircraft descended just low enough for Satsuki to step out of its side and directly on to the space framed by her Four, the branches of the nearby trees whipping back and forth from the wind as she exited the craft.

...The wall wasn't nearly as tall as she would have liked, honestly. Satsuki instantly knew that she should probably have stayed in the helicopter to do this- it was too late to back up and start over though, so she would have to make the best of it.

More students in dull blue uniforms began to lean out of the side of the building, many cramming over each other to get a glimpse at perhaps the most dramatic arrival the school had seen in ages. This turned out to be a mistake, as the moment Satsuki opened her mouth to speak, a burst of rainbow light inexplicably began shining from behind her, temporarily blinding the many students who had the misfortune to be looking directly at her.

"**I am Kiryuin Satsuki, Student Council President of Hounnouji Academy!**" Satsuki yelled, her voice projecting more than loudly enough to be heard over the dull roar of the helicopter, which was taking off even as she spoke. "**As of now, Furinkan High is under our control! Surrender, or be crushed beneath our feet!**"

As she spoke, a boy wearing what appeared to be non-standard red and black clothing suddenly came tumbling out of a third story window, landing in a crouch before dusting himself off and beginning to walk towards the quintet whilst grumbling to himself.

Satsuki ignored this in favor of continuing.

"**All attempts at resistance are futile! Submit yourselves, for you shall only be truly free once you have yielded to fear!** **Accept that truth, you pigs in human clothing!**"

It was, all in all, a rather typical sounding speech for Satsuki- not being in the highest possible position in the area was perhaps leaving her less than inspired- but it was still plenty intimidating, and should have had the desired effect. However, to the five newcomer's collective surprise, the students staring out of the school's windows (those that weren't still rubbing the spots out of their eyes) didn't look frightened, resigned, or even defiant, so much as _enthralled_, as if waiting for a show to start. The red clothed boy now standing below them merely blinked, which was hardly an appropriate reaction to an imperial demand for surrender.

"I missed about half of that," he began, apparently addressing Satsuki, "and I really got no idea what you're talkin' about, but I think you're looking for Pig Boy? Man, that's a relief... one sec', I'll get him for ya'."

Not giving Satsuki any time to process the cryptic statement, the pigtailed boy took in a deep breath before suddenly expelling it in one loud statement.

"HEY RYOGA! I CAN SEE AKANE'S PANTIES FROM HERE!"

"_WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!_" came an enraged female cry from the same window the boy had fallen from.

A fraction of a second later, there was a resounding crash as a portion of the school's outer wall fell down, and a rugged looking teen wearing traveling clothes and a tiger striped bandana stepped through, immediately leaping towards the boy who had just given his inexplicable announcement.

"RAAAAANNNNNMAAAAAA! HOW DARE YOU DEFILE AKANE LIKE THAT!"

"Huh, that was fast. I should use this more often, like when you get lost on the occasional times we actually need you around." the original boy said, more to himself than anyone else, as he sidestepped a strike from the other boy's umbrella that cratered the ground.

Satuski raised an eyebrow by a millimeter. Interesting...

As the newer arrival leveled a punch, the boy in the Chinese clothes dodged and grabbed his arm, redirecting its momentum in order to spin the other teen around to face Satsuki, who continued to look down upon the proceedings with a fierce, yet impassive seeming expression.

The boy, apparently known as Ryoga, looked confused for a moment before growing angry again. "And who is this, another fiancee?! RANMA, YOU-"

"Actually, she said she was looking for YOU, Ryoga!" the pigtailed teen interrupted with a wide smile. "She specifically asked for the 'pig in human clothing', so I knew just who to call. You sly dog, go get em' buddy!" he said cheerfully as he slapped his opponent on the back, sending him stumbling towards the wall upon which Satsuki and her council stood. The bandana wearing boy immediately turned back around and charged back towards his adversary.

"Shut up Ranma! You know I could never betray Akan- Akari like that!"

"Then what was with that little slip of the tongue, huh?"

The other boy sputtered with indignation. "I- gah, wha- ARGHHHH, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! RANMA PREPARE TO DIE!"

"WHAT'S my fault exactly?" the first boy asked with a note of incredulity while backflipping away from another head on attack. "Man, you just make less and less sense every time you show up anymore. Alright, it's been a boring day anyways. Bring it on P-Chan!"

The fight between the two began in earnest before quickly being interrupted as a desk came flying out a window, striking the pigtailed member of the pair in the back of the head. The other member paled as he considered just who might have heard Ranma's "pig" comment.

"HEY PERVERT! DON'T YOU DARE LOOK AT MY UNDERWEAR! AND QUIT PICKING ON RYOGA!" yelled a girl with short, dark hair from a third floor window.

"Crazy macho chick, like I'd ever really wanna look up _your_ skirt! And stop throwin' stuff!" returned the boy who had been hit, using his hands to spring off the ground as his opponent (now reassured that nothing important had been found out) took advantage of the distraction, somehow pulling multiple bandanas out of the one on his head and tossing them overhand like knives.

Satsuki closed her eyes and shook her head an imperceptibly small amount to clear her thoughts. As interesting as the bizarre drama that appeared to be unfolding before her was, it told her little about who here was actually fit to defend the world from COVERS when the time came. While they clearly could fight, what she needed to see was who would resist if a hostile takeover began- and who might just have the potential to win.

"Gamagori."

Sensing the implication, Gamagori nodded and leapt off the wall, directly in to the middle of the fray.

"**HALT**!"

The two martial artists froze, one of them suddenly heavily reminded of a similar move from a forbidden style.

"I AM HOUNNOUJI ACADEMY'S STUDENT COUNCIL DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE CHAIR, **GAMAGORI IRA**!" Gamagori yelled at the top of his lungs as he landed between the two martial artists, the impact being comparable to a minor earthquake. "YOU WILL BOW BEFORE LADY SATSUKI! EITHER DO SO BY YOUR OWN WILL, OR BE **MADE** TO BOW!" he continued while picking up the surprised pair by the back of their shirts. "SUBMIT, AND MAKE THINGS EASIER UPON YOURSELVES!"

"...Oy Jumbo, this is between me and him, stay out of it would ya'?" Ranma said nonchalantly as he hit a pressure point on Gamagori's hand, loosening the massive fingers' grip enough for him to slip out and fall the six foot drop the to ground.

"RANMA, YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" Ryoga screamed at a volume nearing Gamagori's own, currently too angry to truly pay attention to anything besides Ranma and easily prying apart the fingers that held him before dropping as well.

The fighters resumed their battle, completely ignoring an utterly baffled Gamagori.

Satsuki's mouth twitched up for a fraction of a second. Well, it appeared that the tales about this place hadn't been entirely exaggerated after all. They were strong... but how long could they resist under a true assault force?

"Inumuta, Jakuzure, Sanageyama."

"Yes, Lady Satsuki?" chorused the three council members who had remained on the wall with her.

"Enter the school and test the other students for resistance. Anyone who cowers or appears to be nothing more than a common street fighter is beneath our notice, but bring or draw anyone who fights and lasts long enough over to the schoolyard. You may transform if necessary, but do not use lethal force." Satsuki ordered.

"Should we do something about that first?" Sanageyama asked, staring down at the continuing brawl going on below them. Gamagori had reentered the fray, and was now attempting to restrain at least one of the combatants, but was having difficulty catching or keeping a hold of either of them now that he had lost the element of surprise.

Satsuki shook her head. "No. This is Gamagori's battle. In the event that it becomes absolutely necessary, I will personally intercede. Go, **now**!"

"Yes, Lady Satsuki!" the remaining Elite four called out in tandem before dropping from the wall and sprinting for the school.

Satsuki waited until they were halfway there before setting her stance and preparing herself to assist Gamagori. He likely would be unable to take on both of them if what she was witnessing now was any indication- and perhaps she needed a little stress relief anyways. It had been a rather long week.

* * *

"You there, knave!"

Sanageyama stopped in his mad dash towards the school, looking around for the source of the voice while his fellow council members ran on ahead. He was the only one of the group that would really qualify for the title of "knave" after all.

"I heard your mistress' announcement. So, you seek to conquer this fine establishment of learning, do you?" asked his apparently class-skipping opponent as he stepped out from behind a tree. "Well you shall go no further, for you face Kuno Tatewaki, age 18, captain of the Kendo Club, also known as The Blue Thunder of Furinkan High!"

The boy said this all in an extremely theatrical manner, posing dramatically with a wooden sword he seemed to have pulled from his side. Sanageyama was about ready to begin either laughing or clapping- he couldn't decide which- when a bolt of lightning cracked overhead, despite the complete lack of clouds. The other sword user looked up incredulously towards the sky, wondering if he could learn how to do that.

"It is I who shall be your opponent today! Prepare thyself!" Kuno finished, holding his bokken in a ready position.

Eventually lowering his head back to the ground, Sanageyama stared at his opponent's choice of weapon. "Hmm... kendo, huh?" he stated more than asked. "I do a bit of that myself..."

Sanageyama smirked cockily as he drew out his shinai, his own practice sword a "step below" Kuno's and made of bamboo instead of wood, but used for roughly the same purpose. Neither of them were planning on using their respective weapons "properly" enough for that to matter much anyways.

Kuno blinked at the sight, before standing up straighter in order to address Sanageyama once more. "A fellow swordsman, are you? Tell me then, what is your name, so I may know whom I have defeated at this battle's end?"

Sanageyama couldn't help it- he grinned, genuinely. Sure, the ancient samurai act this guy was putting out was a little cliche, but he could really get behind the dramatic proclamations bit- in fact, he could play that game quite easily.

"I am Hounnouji Academy's Student Council Athletic Committee Chair, Sanageyama Uzu! Former representative of the Northern Kanto Gang Leader Alliance! Three star student under the command of Lady Satsuki, and..."

He gave his sword a well practiced twirl before resting it on his shoulder.

"...Kendo Club Captain." he finished, flashing his teeth with a confident grin.

"I see..." Kuno stage-whispered. "Then I give you this chance to prove yourself in combat, my brother. But know this, Sanageyama!" Kuno declared, pointing his sword at his white clad opponent. "Today is the day of your defeat! For whether you prove to be a worthy opponent or not, you shall not triumph here!"

The three star student grinned even wider. "Is that so? I am the strongest of Hounnounji Academy's Elite Four! The all seeing blade of Lady Satsuki, the irresistible spear that pierces all in her path! You will not win this battle, for as long as I have these eyes, I _cannot lose!_"

Had there been any observers to this "fight", by now they would have either broken out in fits of laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of what was quickly becoming ham on ham combat, or begun to grow frustrated at how long these two were taking to start beating each other with their stupid sticks already. Thankfully, the pre-battle script finally seemed to run out of material, as the two fell quiet and faced each other.

It would have been a considerably tense scene- a pair of swordsmen facing off, their hair blowing in a light breeze as each one readied their respective weapons. Two masters of the (practice) blade, both of them skilled enough to use mere wood and bamboo more effectively than steel. Their eyes locked upon each other's, staring their opponent down in preparation of a truly dramatic showdown... except that the sounds of Ranma, Ryoga, and what Sanageyama thought was likely Gamagori fighting each other was still going on in the background, making the affair more comical than anything else.

The two did their best to ignore it though.

And on some unspoken signal...

"LET'S GO!"

"I STRIKE!"

* * *

"...okay, so I've got 1:2 odds that she's a new fiancee of Ranma's, 1:3 odds that she's here seeking vengeance on Ranma or to kidnap my sister, 1:5 odds that she's here for both, and 1:10 odds that she's here for something else entirely." Nabiki announced as she began the betting pool.

"What kind of odds can I get on Ranma picking her in the end if she is a new fiancee?"

"Can't say just yet, come back later."

"Can I get odds on the wrinkled gnome guy showing up?"

"1:1. She's a girl. You don't get to bet on Happosai showing up unless the new arrival is male; we've discussed this before."

"What kind of odds do I get on ALL the new arrivals being fiancees, either to his guy or girl form?"

"I'll give you 1:50 on that, how much are you betting?"

"Hey, hold on. Didn't she just say she was here to take the school or something? So don't we already know she's not here as a fiancee?"

"Please, what they say initially is hardly EVER all there is to Ranma's enemies, especially the girls. Every fiancee he's got, Akane included, either is or was trying to kill him at some point. I'll give you 1:25 odds on that if you'd like, but if this Satsuki girl has any other motivations, or changes goals at some point, the house wins."

A sky blue haired boy stood silently just outside the doorframe, discretely observing the mass of people congregating around the bookmaker. As an elite five man squad, they were quite powerful, but nowhere near numerous enough to search the entire school at once. Thus, he and Nonon had split up- Sanageyama had somehow gotten lost somewhere between the school's main entrance and its outer wall, but he'd no doubt turn up sooner or later. Inumuta was fairly certain each of them had enough power to take down most forms of resistance they might each encounter on their own anyways.

Of course, the strength to overcome resistance meant nothing when no one was trying to resist.

'_They don't seem concerned at all... did they simply not understand the threat, or are they so confident they see no need to run, or even prepare themselves? Perhaps we needed more people after all, if only for the image of an oncoming army to spur them in to action...'_

"That good for nothing pervert, ANOTHER fiancee, honestly!"

Inumuta turned to see the girl who had been yelling at the pigtailed teen earlier stomping down the hall in the direction of the entrance.

"And then he gets in another fight with Ryoga! That jerk, who does he think he-"

The technologically inclined boy stepped in front of her, stopping the girl in her tracks.

"...Hey, you're one of those people that was on the wall a minute ago, aren't you?" the girl thought aloud. Inumuta was about to respond when she spoke again. "That girl who was talking earlier, is she really engaged to Ranma?" she asked tersely.

What WAS all this talk about engagements and fiancees about?

"...Not to my knowledge, no." Inumuta replied honestly. "However, that is not my concern. Prepare yourself," he added as he whipped out his laptop and began to analyze the girl's form.

"Prepare for what?"

He could have smacked himself at the cloud of obliviousness that seemed to permeate this place. "As Lady Satsuki said, we are here to conquer this school. Given your previous actions," the image of a flying desk flashed through Inumuta's mind, "I'm reasonably sure you are going to be one of the resisters. Therefore, prepare yourself."

"Oh, so you want a fight, huh? Alright..." the girl said with a hint of indignation as she moved in to a basic Kempo stance. "I'll prove that I can take care of myself! I'm NOT gonna let myself get kidnapped again!"

Inumuta squinted at the girl over the top of his glasses.

What a strange school this was.

* * *

AN: I was originally going to write this whole thing first and upload it all at once, but then I figured that would take forever and I didn't particularly feel like waiting until November to upload this. So, here you are. Have it.

...and no, I have no idea why I decided to make this either. But I'm having a lot of fun, so let's just go with it.


	2. Talking to Themselves

"Where did everyone _go_?" Nonon griped as she moved through the hallways. "This is boring. And way too quiet..."

She missed her entourage. She missed her _music_. She had no trumpets, no drums, not even a goddamn mp3 player with her. All she _did _have was deathly silence, empty classrooms, and the sound of her own voice. It was _unbearable_.

"Seriously, where the hell are all the students?! They were whole flocks of them hanging out the windows just a few minutes ago!" Nonon yelled at nothing in particular.

"Ooh! Ooh! I know! I know!"

The pink haired girl turned around to see what appeared to be an elementary school girl in a yellow dress, twirling happily in circles as she spun towards the oftentimes caustic conductor.

Weird, but not enough so for Nonon to really bother questioning it. That wasn't what she was here for.

"Yeah? Where are they then, squirt?" she grumpily asked as the kid stopped spinning directly in front of her, and in exchange began to totter on her feet.

The little girl's cheeks puffed out, though she still wasn't able to stand up straight. "I'm not a squirt! I'm as tall as you are!"

Nonon grimaced. Unfortunately, the grade schooler was right. Her growth spurt was taking forever to get here.

"Shut up, brat. Do you know where everyone is, or not? I wanna get this over with."

"...Will you give me some ice cream if I tell you?" the child asked cutely, finally having recovered from her self induced spell of dizziness.

"No. I'm not going to give you ice cream. Why would I give you anything?" Nonon replied flatly, getting rather annoyed. Why was this kid even here?

Said kid crossed her arms and frowned, probably in an attempt to look intimidating. "Hmmph! I'll have you know I am a teacher! And I want ice cream!"

"Right. Like I care." Unless this school was truly so stupid as to hire a little kid for their staff, Nonon found it unlikely that she was telling the truth about the first part, and saw no reason to humor her.

The cheeks of the girl in the yellow dress puffed up again, this time to a near comical extent. "Even if you are from another school, students who do not treat teachers with respect are delinquents!" she yelled/whined, fishing out what looked to be a fifty yen piece from somewhere on her person.

"Whatever brat, if you aren't gonna help me then get lost. Go buy your own damn ice cream." Nonon said before starting to walk off.

"HAPPOGOJUEN-"

A nearby part of the wall exploded, cutting off a yell of something unintelligible from the annoying little girl. The Non-Athletic Committee Chair was momentarily surprised, and turned back around to see what had caused the sudden small scale demolition.

Through the newly created "door" stepped a girl with long, purplish-blue hair wearing some sort of Chinese minidress, a look of intent determination on her face. In one hand she held what appeared to be a platter of food, and in the other, what looked to the resident conductor like a giant beach ball on the end of a stick.

Looking around, the new arrival quickly spotted the girl Nonon had just been talking too.

"You! You is Small Teacher, yes? Why students not in room? Shampoo need give Ranma her special lunch before it get cold!" she asked, gesturing with the beach ball stick.

Nonon continued to watch the proceedings with mild interest as the little girl, who apparently really WAS a teacher if the stacked new girl had any clue what she was talking about, simply continued to hold up her piece of coinage for some reason. "Students who destroy school property are also delinquents! You must be punished as well!"

The Chinese clothed girl smiled innocently. "But Shampoo not student, so is okay, yes? Now where-"

"HAPPOGOJUENSATSU!"

* * *

Satsuki frowned. As she had suspected would be the case, Gamagori was making almost no headway in taking on the two clashing martial artists, who seemed to be treating him more as an obstacle/springboard than an actual opponent. At current they were literally dueling on his shoulders, using him as some sort of makeshift platform despite all attempts by the massive man to throw them off.

She'd already seen enough to gauge the pair's skill levels, and this was quickly becoming a farce. It was time to intervene.

"**Gamagori!**" Satsuki barked as she jumped from the wall, landing in a crouch before quickly rising to a more dignified looking position and beginning to walk towards her subordinate.

The Disciplinary Committee Chair instantly ceased all attempts to shake the fighting pair of teens off of his shoulders and stood at attention to receive new orders, which made for a rather ridiculous sight, as the pair on top of him did not appear to be planning on stopping any time soon.

"That is enough. I will fight the one in red. You shall face the other." Satsuki instructed. "Now, stand firm!"

"Yes, Lady Satsuki!" Gamagori bellowed, saluting before crossing his arms and setting his stance in a way that dug his heels deep in to the ground. At the same time, Satsuki closed her eyes and refined her inner focus even further than usual...

And a moment later, she released it.

"**HAAAAUUUU!**"

A wave of concentrated chi swept over the area in front of Satsuki, blowing the two fighters off the Disciplinary Chair's shoulders while he himself tried to not be swept away. The yellow one smacked in to a tree, somehow managing to knock it over in the process before dropping out of sight, while the red one hit the side of the school building feet first and rebounded off of it, landing in a crouch back on the ground. Satsuki strode toward the latter, emitting a nigh-on-tangible force of will that would likely have been capable of knocking aside a battleship.

He had best not disappoint her.

* * *

"Geez, what was that...?" Ranma muttered as he stood up and dusted himself off. He had been fighting Ryoga, and then the girl who had been standing on the wall had-

"You seem not to understand the gravity of your situation."

Ranma looked up to see the woman who had just attacked him imperiously walking in his direction, stopping a few yards away and staring the pigtailed boy down in a rather _distinct_ manner- a manner that seemed to indicate she viewed him with about the same amount of respect one would usually reserve for the remains of a particularly repulsive bug they had found on the bottom of their shoe.

"Hey, come on, I thought you were lookin' for Ryoga. Whatever you want, it ain't got nothin' to do with me." Ranma asserted as he quickly analyzed the long haired girl he now faced. Whether he liked it or not, this was probably going to lead to a fight for some reason- it wasn't hard to tell given the way she was looking at him- so he needed to be prepared. Although the energy she was giving off hadn't manifested in to any sort of battle aura yet, he could tell it was potent all the same, and it felt like it was based entirely on sheer willpower. That alone was cause enough for concern.

Ranma thought he saw a flicker of confusion flash across the older teen's face at his words before it hardened once again.

"Your friend is being dealt with as we speak." the woman (whose name Ranma hadn't caught) spoke to him, still in that imperial, rather militaristic tone. "And you must be dealt with as well."

She raised the sheath at her side, opening it just the slightest fraction to reveal a shining glint of black steel. "Now we shall see if in the wake of a hurricane, you fight and persist to its end, or crumble to dust like a leaf in its tempest."

Ranma still wanted no part of this, no matter the fact that she had basically just challenged him. "Look lady, I really ain't got any interest in fighting-"

"Your opinion means _nothing_ to me." the black haired woman cut in, allowing him no chance to protest. "Nor does your choice. If you do not fight with all the strength of the animal, backed in to a corner by its deadliest predator..."

Suddenly her blade was no longer covered. Ranma had barely been able to track its movements- to unsheath it, she had swung it in a horizontal arc-

The gender cursed martial artist dived frantically to the ground as an enormous wave of pressure blasted the entire north side of the school's lowest floor, sending chunks of plaster and window glass flying in every direction.

"...then you shall **fall**, **JUST AS ALL COWARDS DO!**"

All of a sudden the woman was standing directly above Ranma's splayed out body, her sword raised above her head and a glare on her face that would have brought lesser humans to their knees on the spot. She could have impaled him then and there had Ranma not quickly flipped off the ground and back handsprung away, putting some much needed distance between himself and the all-too-clearly dangerous girl.

Ranma sighed in relief at escaping the close call as the girl resheathed her sword, still continuing to glare at him intently. She did not move, appearing to be waiting for him to do something- which was a pretty stupid move in Ranma's opinion, but he was happy for the moment to collect his thoughts all the same.

_'Don't look like I'm gonna be able to get out of this one... an' in that case...'_

...Okay, he could do this. Sure she'd just done... that, and the raw _will_ she was exuding was certainly nothing to sneeze at, but he'd beaten _Herb_ and _Saffron_, not to mention countless others. There was no way she could be the worst thing he'd faced thus far.

"Fine, guess you ain't givin' me much choice." the pigtailed boy called out, resignation quickly turning to determination as he moved in to a fighting stance. "May as well make it official then. I'm Saotome Ranma of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts- and I accept your challenge."

The girl smiled thinly as her brow narrowed, focusing fully in on him.

And then abruptly, she blasted out of her position, rushing forth with all the force and speed of a meteor impact.

"**Then prove to me your worth, Saotome Ranma!**" she cried out as the boy in question moved to meet her charge...

* * *

"YAYAYAYAYAYAYA!"

"MEN!DOU!KOTE!MEN!DOU!KOTE!"

The swords of the two kendo captains flashed out at speeds too fast for the eye- or rather, most eyes, to follow. A quick exchange ended with Kuno being smacked multiple times in two of the three areas and staggering back, yet keeping his grip on his sword and looking little worse for wear. Sanageyama had not yet taken any hits (and found it unlikely he was _going_ too), but was getting rather tired all the same.

The three star student was pleasantly surprised by the other teen's skill. He'd honestly sort of expected the kendoist to be mostly bravado, but it turned out Kuno did in fact have some bite to his bark. He was nearly as fast with his bokken as Sanageyama himself, which in and of itself wouldn't have been anything particularly special- however, his sword appeared to be able to to send waves of cutting pressure from its tip, something like what Lady Satsuki herself could do, but on a much smaller scale. Still, although small, the speed at which Kuno was able to send the waves out made them downright deadly, and he had destroyed several trees in the clearing already. This had been forcing the Athletic Committee Chair to parry often while dodging as widely as possible, giving him less time to attack and allowing Kuno a lot of breathing room.

The pair clashed again, and this time Sanageyama only managed to smash Kuno on the chin and body once each before being forced away by another whirlwind barrage of strikes.

If the self proclaimed "All Seeing Sword" had to pick out one key thing he found wrong with the other boy's style, it was that he made no moves to dodge any attack he could not parry. But to be fair, he didn't seem to _need_ to. Although he was quite easy to hit, Kuno had not yet dropped from any of the head, body, _or_ wrist strikes Sanageyama had landed, and he had landed a lot. Granted, he was holding back, but his shinai had actually tremored as if about to _break_ the first time he had landed an overhand strike on Kuno's skull- it was as if his head was simply exceptionally hard for some reason. Sanageyama had since changed to using thrusts to the temples.

The Athletic Committee Chair ran right as another storm of pressure waves pelted the area he had just been in, jumping and bounding off a tree to strike Kuno three times in succession once more before parrying his opponent's blade and moving back.

Activating his Blade Regalia was an option, but Sanageyama was pretty sure this didn't qualify as being severe enough of a situation to really warrant its use. In fact, the situation itself held very little actual danger- Sanageyama himself probably didn't need to dodge if he didn't want too, as even his untransformed uniform would be able to protect him from near anything Kuno could dish out. But being hit at all would practically be a defeat in and of itself- if his Tengantsu wasn't reliable enough to use on a student who wasn't even using a Goku Uniform, he may as well go and ask Lady Satsuki to strip him of his uniform and rank on the spot.

The next trade of blows ended with Kuno being struck in the forehead six consecutive times, yet still not going down. Sanageyama began to wonder if he was holding himself in check a little TOO much. Should he be using his full force on someone not even wearing a Goku Uniform?

...probably not. Oh well. If he wanted to let Kuno showcase any of his skills, Sanageyama needed to keep him on his feet for a while longer anyways, lest he knock the other boy unconscious and have Lady Satsuki think he'd forgotten the entire point of this mission. So the current arrangement worked out just fine- it wasn't like he wouldn't still win in the end. He wouldn't let another kendoist show him up just because he was fighting with a self-imposed handicap after all.

The two swordsmen tensed for another exchange, and closed in to attack-

"ALOOOOOOOOO-HAAAAAA!"

Both fighters were forced to suddenly cut off their attacks as a dark skinned man, wearing Hawaiian tourist clothing and with what seemed to be a miniature palm tree growing out of his head, crashed from above directly in to the middle of their duel.

"Eyyyy, Little Tatchi, why you not in de classroom right now?" the bizarrely dressed man asked, turning towards Kuno while strumming a ukelele.

* * *

Gosunkugi walked, zombielike, through the halls of Furinkan.

He had been left behind. Of course he had. So concerned were they at leaving that no one would even explain what was going on when he came back from the bathroom. Heck, they probably hadn't even _noticed_ him.

But then, when was that ever NOT the case...?

The pale boy sighed to himself. Why oh why had he not just followed the flow of the crowd? Now everyone was gone, and he had no idea how to find them.

After wandering around the school for a while, the gaunt boy at last heard some noise coming from a classroom. He peered in through the cracked door- from what he could see, it appeared Nabiki Tendo had set up some sort of gambling ring based around... something that was going on outside the window, apparently.

Thank goodness, at least now he could ask-

Sounds of fighting reached Gosunkugi's ears from around the corner to the next hallway. There was a crash, and the sound of a male voice saying something he couldn't quite make out from this distance.

Being the frail stick of a person that he was, Gosunkugi would normally have never even considered walking _towards_ a fight. His motto was "If it can't see you, it can't hurt you," which was quite easy to accomplish for someone as unnoticeable as him so long as he didn't walk directly in to something. And so, he wisely did his best to ignore the noise, and began to open the door to ask where the rest of the students had gone.

"STAND STILL ALREADY!"

...one of the sole exceptions to this motto was when one of the fighters happened to be his one true love, Tendo Akane.

Having heard that last bit loud and clear, Gosunkugi sprinted as fast as his noodly legs could carry him to the end of the hall, before slowly, carefully, _stealthily_ poking his head around the corner.

A boy wearing an extremely strange white uniform, with what looked to be blue cables coming out of the wrists and neck, was fighting Akane in the middle of the hall. The Tendo girl appeared to be getting quite frustrated, probably because although the walls and floor had several craters in them, her opponent did not appear to be damaged in the slightest.

For some reason, there was also a laptop computer sitting on the floor near Gosunkugi's spying spot, proudly touting how out of place it was in the virtually untouched section of the hallway.

"Hmm. Is this truly all you are capable of?" the male of the pair inquired from behind his extremely tall collar, avoiding another straightforward punch from his equally straightforward opponent.

"Not even close! I'm just getting warmed- ERK-!"

The lighter blue haired teen had landed a knife hand in Akane's solar plexus, knocking the wind out of her lungs and driving her stumbling back, coughing, in to one of the empty classrooms.

"I didn't even need to analyze you. Your attacks are so predictable that it was nothing but a waste of computer power." he said, sounding simultaneously disappointed and annoyed. "A shame, but this appears to have been a pointless use of my time. I overestimated you."

The oddly dressed teen began to stroll in no great hurry towards the laptop, while a trembling Gosunkugi whipped his head back around the corner so as not to be seen and tried to not start hyperventilating.

_'Oh no, I can't hide here! He's going to see me!'_

"*Cough*... I'm not done yet..."

The sound of footsteps stopped and reversed direction, prompting the hidden boy to peek his head out by just a fraction once more. Akane stood in the doorway she had just recently fallen back through, breathing heavily but still quite willing to fight.

"I'll grant that you have stamina, but nothing you've shown me thus far, nor that I was able to analyze earlier, indicates that continuing would be a worthwhile use of my time." the blue haired boy stated, cold logic and a sense of utter boredom in his tone. "I need data on opponents who are actually worth fighting, I'm afraid."

"Oh, **_SHUT UP_**! " Akane shouted, an angry red battle aura beginning to boil around her. "I'LL SHOW **YOU** WHO'S NOT WORTH FIGHTING!"

"Hmm, that's unexpected." the boy murmured, putting his hand to where his chin (were it not covered by six inches of fabric) would normally be and examining the bubbling red energy that now surrounded the girl. "Very well then. Show me something I could not have forseen."

The battle was joined once more, but despite the impressive battle aura engulfing Akane's figure, she still could not seem to hit her wiry opponent. Each time she attacked he would dodge away, right before striking her in one or two extremely disabling spots.

_'If this keeps up, Akane is going to lose!'_ the Gosunkugi thought frantically to himself as he pressed his body even closer against the wall. _'I have to do something to help her!'_

Now, any rational person of Gosunkugi's short stature, rail thin body, and complete lack of strength in virtually every possible regard would go get someone who they thought might actually be able to fight Inumuta- say, Ukyo. Perhaps he could have found and brought her back in time to keep the former computer hacker from at least completely beating the stuffing out of Akane, and even if the short tempered girl surely would have been angry that she'd been saved by a rival, Gosunkugi could have been proud of the fact that he had at least saved his goddess from her vicious attacker; that he had helped in some small way.

But this was Nerima, a ward not exactly known for its resident's heaping amounts of rationality. In fact, the area barely had a shred of it to go around.

And so, instead of doing any of that, the aspirant Vodouist whipped some candles out of absolutely nowhere, and began tying them to his head...

* * *

It was a less than average day at Furinkan High.

"Hey, this new chick is pretty good, dontcha think?"

"Yeah, but Ranma's probably not fighting her at full strength since she's a girl, so I don't think we can say for sure who's going to win yet... unless you meant..."

"Her looks? Ohhh yeah, she is _hot_. But then, when have Saotome's fiancees ever NOT been hot?"

"Kodachi. Nice body, but her personality..."

"I thought she was only a self-proclaimed one?"

"Yeah, she is. Forget that though, we're talking about this Kiryuin girl."

"Did anyone else notice her eyebrows though? I can see them from here..."

This conversation was coming from a group of boys (which just so happened to include both Daisuke and Hiroshi), who were watching the fighting going on below with ever-increasing interest. The majority of the students were currently on the roof of the building, having been shepherded to safer ground by those faculty that actually had some small speck of sense. Most of the staff (barring the principal) had recently agreed on a general rule to follow during the school's all too frequent emergencies- that being you either get yourself and your students to higher ground so you don't get caught in the crossfire, or you join in (this addendum applied virtually only to Hinako). Thus, pretty much the only students who were still in the main building were the ones who had headed to Nabiki's classroom to play the gambling corner, and those who had drifted down a floor when the roof became too packed to comfortably accommodate them.

Many of the students who had remained on the roof were huddled near the north side of it, straining to get a better look through the fences at the action going on below. And naturally, just because the resident mercenary wasn't on the roof with them didn't mean there wasn't gambling going on.

"Hey, bet you 500 yen that the new fiancee wins."

"Sure. Same amount on the humongous guy beating Ryoga."

"Sounds good."

Ukyo, who was sitting close to the group (judging by their comments, they seemed to have forgotten she was there), decided to take it up a notch.

"10000 yen on Ranma."

The group collectively started at that.

"Woah, Ukyo, upping the ante a bit much there aren't ya?" asked Daisuke.

"No- Ranchan is never going to lose to that girl. And she's NOT a new fiancee!" Ukyo retorted.

Her grip absently slid to the enormous spatula strapped to her back and tightened around its familiar metallic shaft. '_At least, she'd better_ _not be..._'

Aside from Ukyo, who slightly broke the pattern, the miniature conclaves that had formed were shockingly well organized- the boys interested in watching had taken one corner of the roof, while the girls who were similarly interested had claimed the other. Those who were uninterested in the fighting were either talking, eating, or catching up on homework in the back, while the faculty had taken to this opportunity as a well deserved break, and were either watching with the students or trying to relax, hoping the fight wouldn't somehow stray up here and that the construction workers would be able to fix the first floor windows by the end of today. Someone had broken out a water cooler filled with ice cold drinks- why they had that with them at school was anyone's guess- and was selling them for 150 yen a pop.

Really, the entire affair was like Furinkan's version of a sports event.

One of the watching girls suddenly let out a squeal.

"Hey, is that Kuno fighting the hot guy with the green hair?!"

"Really? Move over!"

"Don't PUSH! We're on a roof!"

"But there are fences!"

"I can't see, the trees are in the way..."

"Awww, did we miss it?"

"No, I think they just stopped because- hey, that's Principal Kuno!"

"I'll bet you 1000 yen that the hot guy beats both of them!"

"You're on!"

...it was a perfectly average day at Furinkan High.

* * *

AN: Yep, it's a Ranma romp, and that means characters practically dropping out of the freaking SKY just to make things more difficult on everyone involved. Or make things just plain silly. That too.

It took a while to get Satsuki's dialogue just right- tell me how I did on that please, if you care to review. :)


	3. Aggression and Delusion

The fallen tree rolled off to the side as Ryoga easily pushed it off of him, growling through his teeth at whatever sort of chi attack that girl had just hit him with and hoping he was still somewhere on the school premises. If he'd been flung outside of them, he wouldn't find his way back for at least a week.

The lost boy stood up stewing in a cocktail of unhealthy thoughts, the majority of which centered around (what else?) his ever loathsome rival, Saotome Ranma. This was all his fault! Him and that girl's, and since she was almost definitely another fiancee (so said Ryoga's foolproof train of logic), her even being here was also probably Ranma's fault! How many times was he going to break Akane's heart by getting himself engaged to another woman?! It was despicable! A lowlife like him didn't even deserve a person like Akane!

Ryoga stopped dead before he could take a single step forward- which was probably a good thing, since he was headed in the wrong direction. A thought had just occurred to him, perhaps due to his recent arboreal collision. Come to think of it, if his rival got married to someone else, then wouldn't...?

_'Yes, that's it!'_ the lost boy thought to himself excitedly. He would make sure Ranma got together with this new girl, and with Akane freed from that wretch, maybe he could finally work up the courage to make his own move! It was perfect- well, Ranma might end up happy with the arrangement, but that was overall a minor detail, so long as he was out of the picture and paid for all Ryoga's suffering at some point in the future. It would mean putting off their current fight as well, but he needed to act now, before he got lost again.

And so, pulling what was colloquially known as a "Kuno" around those parts, Ryoga managed to conveniently forget about Akari for the moment (as well as the fact that he had already tried this sort of thing before) and rushed off to enact his newest plan to woo his one, _true_ love.

-**TUNK**-

...and ran smack dab in to the vast expanse of muscle that was Gamagori's chest.

For a moment, neither one moved. Seconds ticked past as Ryoga's nigh-indestrucible skull (and face) remained firmly planted in Gamagori's equally impregnable abdomen.

Inevitably, Ryoga drew back first, gasping for air. Gamagori, who had marched over while Ryoga had still been using a tree for a blanket, was in turn the first to speak.

"This conquest is running on a schedule, so I suggest we begin again as soon as possible." the Disciplinary Committee Chair spoke with his hands behind his back, keeping it to a more normal volume than before.

Ryoga shook his head and stared, only now really taking in just what he was looking at. The blond-haired boy... no, definitely man was dressed in a white outfit whose central feature was a black, cross-like star, splayed across the chest area and adorned with some smaller spikes on either end. Actually, "spiky" was a pretty good word to describe the entire outfit, as metal ones adorned the man's shoes, partially-imposing but mostly-ridiculous looking gauntlets, and even his shoulders... one side of which was looking a bit bent at the moment.

Ryoga squinted at that. He _did _recall that the surface he had been fighting Ranma on just now had felt a bit prickly...

"Did you hear me? We must begin immediately." the larger male said in a strict, firm tone.

"Oh, uh, sorry. Begin what?" Ryoga asked, clueless.

The mammoth-sized man let out a sigh. "It is Lady Satsuki's wish that I fight and subdue you as part of this operation. Did you not even **notice** my previous actions?"

"Well... sorta?" Ryoga said while putting a hand behind his head, embarrassed. He hadn't actually been paying much attention earlier, so fixated on Ranma had he been, and had only half-consciously noted the presence of the other person who'd been involved. Of course, now that he was actually looking, the ever wandering martial artist wasn't sure how he had managed to miss the rather _unique_ characteristics of the... student? he now faced.

...wait, hadn't this guy been larger a few minutes ago?

Deciding he had to be remembering wrong, Ryoga shrugged and decided to try reason. He didn't have time for this. "Er, if you're challenging me, can we do this some other time? I kind of need to-"

"**NO!**" Gamagori bellowed, returning to a level of noise one might use to try and communicate with a deaf person and putting on an utterly _terrifyingly_ expression. "THIS CANNOT BE DELAYED! DISCIPLINE **MUST** BE UPHELD AT HONNOUJI ACADEMY, AND WITHOUT LADY SATSUKI AND THE ELITE FOUR PRESENT, THE CHANCES OF FLAGRANT RULE VIOLATION GROW HIGHER BY THE MINUTE! STUDENTS MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO BELIEVE THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH BREAKING THE SCHOOL CODE OF CONDUCT, EVEN FOR THE FEW HOURS WE ARE NOT THERE TO ENFORCE IT!"

Unfortunately, Ryoga was only getting about a quarter of this, as he was too busy clutching his ears to truly comprehend anything the disciplinarian was saying. Before he even could process what was happening, the other male was suddenly towering over him, practically as tall as the tree Ryoga had smashed in to earlier.

"TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! WE WILL FINISH THIS **NOW**!"

A fist of thoroughly ridiculous size came flying towards Ryoga, which he instinctively blocked with an open palm- and was unexpectedly forced to use the majority of his arm strength to hold it back. The lost boy's heels dug small trenches in to the dirt as the ground refused to hold him in position. What the-?!

Ryoga leaped backwards to escape an overhead smash from Gamagori's other hand, which shook the nearby ground and sent even more dirt flying up and away from it. The Disciplinary Chair's face remained as serious as ever as the ground cratered beneath his fist and Ryoga stood in minor shock. This guy was nearly as strong as he was! Large or not, that wasn't normal...!

"YOU DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE IN THIS MATTER! ** I _WILL NOT_ DISAPPOINT LADY SATSUKI!**" Gamagori boomed as he stood back up, looking every bit the part of the drill sergeant he usually acted as- plus or minus a couple meters in height.

Ryoga grit his teeth and narrowed his eyes at his very insistent opponent.

_'Looks like I have no choice...'  
_

Gamagori slowly began to approach Ryoga once more, his shadow looming ever further as the lost boy growled and pulled a few bandanas off his head...

* * *

Sanageyama stared at the incredibly bizarre scene unfolding before him.

"Tatchi, you know De Big Kahuna have ta punish de rulebreakers, ya? You no' allowed ta be skippin' de classes jus' because I de principal!"

Kuno scowled and raised his blade once more. "It is primarily **because** of you that I am not in class at this moment, you depraved scoundrel of a father!"

Sanageyama snorted under his breath as he watched the proceedings. _This_ was Kuno's father, who also just so happened to be the principal?

...now he felt sorry for the poor guy. The things he must have gone through...

"Awww, com' on Tatchi, all you need do is get de buzz cut! Den we be a happy family again with Lil 'Dachi!"

"_Never_! I refuse to allow you to come anywhere _near_ my locks! You still do not realize the depths at which I suffered the last time you made a mockery of my hair, and if you continue this recent trend of ambushing me in front of my classroom each and every morning, I will be forced to take more drastic measures than simply avoiding you! And STOP calling me that!" Kuno shouted in an extended tirade of defiance.

The elder Kuno, however, was no longer listening, having turned on his selective hearing and moved to examine Sanageyama, who stared back warily.

"Oh? And who might _dis_ new brudda be?" the principal asked, studying the green haired kendo captain intently. "Maybe ah' new transfa' student?"

"Yeah, no." Sanageama shot back flippantly, ready to get back to the duel. "Mind moving? We were in the middle of-"

"Well WELCOM' to Furinkan keiki!" the principal yelled in his usual bombastic manner, completely ignoring the new "student". "I be de Big Kahuna of dis here school! We gon' have some BIIIIG time fun now!"

"Oy Old Man, I just said-"

"In fact, we go an' file yo' paypawok right now, but befo' dat..."

A pineapple was unexpectedly thrust in to Sanageyama's hands. He stared down at it, extremely confused. What-?

**-!SSSSSSHHHHBOOOOOOM!-**

A manic grin flashed across the Hawaiian Nutjob's face as he leapt through the smoke created by the explosion towards the surely stunned "transfer student", clippers pulled from his pockets in hand.

"WE JUS' GOTTA GIVE YOU DE BUZZ-!"

A bamboo blade found its home in the face of the man who had attempted to bring his clipping shears near Sanageyama's head, blowing him backwards off his feet and away from the now-quite-annoyed Athletic Committee Chair.

"_Thanks_, but I happen to like my hair as it is." Sanageyama grunted with an irritated frown, not actually having been hurt by the blast due to his uniform, but still quite blackened and sooty.

It was then that the smoke cleared, and the kendo master realized he had hit the Hawaiian-obsessed man with all his strength, which had launched him backwards in to his son with enough speed and power to knock them both unconscious.

"...aw, damnit."

* * *

The eyebrows of a certain rather short drum major rose considerably, her interest finally becoming truly piqued as tendrils of _something_ in the air suddenly began flowing from the wall-smashing girl to the third grader, which the former could not seem to escape from, having been caught off guard.

_'Now this is intriguing..._' Nonon thought to herself, settling back on her heels to watch the show.

Whatever it was, it was certainly effective. Beach ball girl was struggling, but her movements were quickly slowing down. Nonon figured the girl would drop within another ten seconds or so at this rate.

However, as the universe is occasionally wont to drop on people without warning, something unexpected happened.

"SHAMPOO!"

A white blur rocketed through the hole in the wall, colliding with beach ball girl and throwing her out of the net of... whatever it was. The blur, which resolved itself in to a boy with very long black hair and coke bottle glasses, stopped moving as he hit the web of tendrils and became trapped in the girl's place.

The now-freed girl stood up from where she'd fallen, shaking herself off before turning to the progressively-more-zombiesque boy, looking very annoyed.

"Stupid Mousse! Shampoo no need you to save her! Now the lunch Shampoo make for Ranma ruined!" she snapped, gesturing to the broken platter and spilled food a few feet away.

The boy's expression turned from hopeful to crestfallen, which had nothing to do with the fact that he had just fallen to knees, unable to stand any longer.

"But... Shampoo..."

The drained husk of the boy raised one clawing hand upwards before he collapsed on the floor, going limp.

The spectating conductor smirked slightly in amusement at the scene- it was like watching some sort of sappy teen-love movie parody- before raising her hands up flat and looking at each of them in turn, weighing her options. On one hand, the little girl was strong, and Satsuki-chan would definitely be pleased to have someone who could do that on her side. On the other hand, did she _really_ want to work with someone no older than-

Wait.

Nonon blinked and rubbed her eyes- nope, still there. Standing in place of the once-little girl was a very clearly _mature_ woman, if the fact that her body was now straining against the dress she was wearing was anything to go by.

What the...?

"Hmm. He saved you from being fully drained." the now-woman spoke in a far deeper, more sultry tone than she had before. "That was quite noble. But I'm afraid I can't allow him to take for himself the punishment your delinquency requires I administer. **Happogojuensatsu!**"

This time, her opponent was not ensnared, leaping over the tendrils to land behind the woman and smashing down with her beach ball stick, which the former child only barely avoided due to not exactly being dressed for ease of movement.

"You and Mousse make Shampoo drop special lunch for Ranma! Shampoo make you pay!"

The older woman rapidly turned and held her coin aloft once more, while her opponent brought up her mace-

Seeing as how they had apparently completely forgotten about her for the moment, Nonon took to ignoring the pair until she could figure out how to proceed.

Well, setting aside the weird instant puberty (and then some) thing, they both seemed capable enough fighters. The amazing insta-grow teacher had taken out whoever the hell that other guy had been in no time, and Beach Ball Girl's stick was apparently some sort of weapon, plus she was still standing even after getting hit by the same thing random guy had. So, it was probably safe to say they were prospects that she should be "testing". Nonon wasn't exactly sure how she felt about possibly inducting a new member in to their inner circle, but it was what Satsuki-chan wanted, and if they could help her best friend's plan come to fruition, she'd gladly welcome... hmm, well, at least tolerate either of the two people fighting further down the hall.

Though, if they kept this up, they'd take each other out before the three star student could even give them her "exam"- and as fun as that might be to watch, the pink haired girl thought she'd been a spectator for long enough. It was time for the real show to start.

* * *

Off in a perspective switch, a Chinese amazon and an age-fluxing teacher continued to do battle.

If it could even be called that at the moment.

Sweat dripped from Shampoo's brow as she stared down her opponent, none too happy with this current turn of events. Her chui, positioned all of a foot above the schoolteacher's head, could be dropped at any time- but the coin held the same distance away from her face could be used equally freely. Neither she nor her opponent had moved for the past minute or so, unsure which of them was faster. Neither of the two had _talked_ either, as any attempt to do so would likely be seen as calling an attack, and would end the impromptu Mexican Standoff.

And so they stood, unmoving.

Mousse gave a little twitch from where he'd fallen.

_Riveting_.

This little scene was thankfully interrupted as a high pitched whistle filled the hallway, causing both combatants to involuntarily stiffen. Shampoo quickly attempted to seize the opportunity and took a swing at the schoolteacher, but unfortunately for the amazon, her opponent had taken advantage of the distraction as well- not to attack, but to step back towards the wall and out of the Chinese girl's attack range.

Now that the imminent threat was gone, Shampoo looked over towards the source of the incessant noise, which turned out to be the girl whose presence she had been ignoring her up until now, blowing loudly in to a flute and wearing a pleased expression. Shampoo had vaguely noted she was there after breaking through the wall and paid her no further attention, but such an intentionally piercing screech was near impossible to simply brush off.

"Such a dry opening performance! I can't watch anymore!" the pink haired girl said in a mockingly disapproving tone, stowing the flute in her hat and twirling a baton between her fingertips. "So let's move on! I think it's time for the main event!"

Shampoo squinted at her. "What Hat Girl talking about?"

The girl in question scowled and stomped her foot petulantly. "Hey, watch the name, Beach Ball! It's Nonon, Jakuzure Nonon! Non-Athletic Club Committee Chair of Honnouji Academy!"

The amazon remained unmoved. Was that supposed to MEAN something to her?

"I must ask you to stay away." the currently 20-something year old teacher requested, one eye still on Shampoo. "While you still deserve to be punished, upon further reflection perhaps draining you is too harsh for simply being rude. But now is not the time for such things. Please leave."

Shampoo was less polite. "Hat Girl be quiet, Shampoo busy!"

"Hat Girl" smirked- and the Shampoo immediately grew much more wary. It was a knowing smirk, like that of someone who knew something that-

"NO ONE tells the conductor to be quiet, Beach Ball!" the girl returned scornfully, a malicious looking smile flashing across her face. "Prepare to beaten merrily, musically, and immediately, **_BITCH!_**"

Shampoo would have retorted with something equally rude, but was suddenly blinded as the girl's clothing dissolved in to dazzling pink light...

* * *

Akane panted, so incredibly tired and bruised that she felt she may well collapse at any second. Her battle aura was starting to die down, even her anger too exhausted to keep it up very high.

She couldn't hit him. If she could just lay a single punch on this guy she KNEW she would knock him out flat, but he wouldn't stop dodging! It was like fighting Ranma, except this guy actually hit back! If her stupid fiance had just FOUGHT her when she'd asked, maybe she would have some idea how to-

The youngest Tendo shook her head, trying to shake off the thought. Wishing for things that hadn't happened wasn't going to help her now. Her opponent was still just as fresh as he was at the start of this fight, and she was about ready to drop to the floor- a floor absolutely covered with cracks, craters, and fissures from her own missed attacks, which only drove in how badly matched her style was to his.

"Even with this energy field enhancing your movements, you are doing nothing but delay me. If you insist on continuing, I'll stop holding back." the boy stated succinctly, apathy perfectly evident in his voice.

Akane growled, pain racing through her jaw at the action. Even as beat up as she was, she couldn't help the rising indignation. On top of being the worst possible kind of opponent for her to fight, he was _holding back_?! He wasn't even taking her seriously?!

If she hadn't already been on her second wind, this new information may have given rise to enough fury that she could continue. But as things were, she couldn't manage that. She'd just endured two pummelings in a row, and the guy apparently wasn't even giving it his all- the best she could do right now was remain standing and try to catch a breather.

Damnit, why was it that ever since Ranma showed up, every new arrival in town was somehow stronger than her?! She used to be one of the best martial artists in the area! Was she really going to lose to-

"W-wait!"

The short haired girl looked over towards the cry, not sure what she was expecting, but perhaps hoping for some sort of help- she certainly wasn't so proud that she'd turn it down by this point. This was how she came to bear witness to the unexpected sight of a boy with dark bags under his eyes and lit candles strapped to his head, holding aloft a small wooden hammer and a rather long nail. His skin was so pale he could have been mistaken for a walking cadaver, and his body was trembling like he'd just been dunked in ice water- which indicated he probably wasn't going to be of any help.

Wait, didn't she know this guy? Yeah, she recognized him from class, and they'd talked a few times a while back- what was his name, Go... Go, something or other...?

"L-Leave her alone!" the quivering boy proclaimed shakily, obvious incredibly unsure of what he was doing. "I w-won't let you hurt Akane anymore! Fight me instead!"

Unfortunately for him, Akane failed to truly process his brave declaration, largely due to being too caught up in trying to remember the boy's name. In fact, the Tendo girl was so distracted that she also hadn't noticed her opponent's reaction to the new arrival- he was staring wide eyed at the floor, where the corpse-like student's feet were only a few inches away from a certain object.

The analytic boy's demeanor changed from bored to menacing at roughly the speed of a light particle.

"_**IF YOU SO MUCH AS TOUCH MY LAP****TOP, YOU**** DIE.**__** DO NOT-**_"

The Information and Strategy Committee Chair (not that anyone in the hallway besides himself knew that title) involuntarily let out a strangled cry. Gosunkugi, startled by the unexpectedly loud, threatening tone of the person he'd come to face, had scrambled backwards in a panic... and of course, the back of the clumsy Vodouist's foot had caught on the computer, and he had fallen right over top of it.

Akane would have taken this chance distraction to try and attack the blue haired boy- and maybe break those stupid tinted glasses in the process for all he'd just put her through- but before she could so much as blink, her opponent was at the end of the hall, throwing her "savior" off the small machine and cradling the computer like it was his child. So fast-!

She didn't have much time to contemplate his true (or in actuality, panic-driven) speed, as the wafer-thin boy who was apparently trying to help her had been thrown in Akane's direction. The short tempered girl was only barely able to catch him despite his lightness, she was so sore from fighting. Great, now she was going to have to possibly protect this guy too. Could this situation get any worse...?

Her question was answered as her recent tormenter turned around, pure rage in his eyes. The part of his jacket that had been hiding his face was now unzipped, baring to Akane the furious snarl he currently wore.

"You have provided _**very**_ little new data, _**pointlessly**_ delayed me, and now you've _**scuffed**_ my laptop." her formerly calm, collected opponent sneered through his teeth. "My patience has run **_out_**."

And it was with those words that a shining blue light filled the hallway.

* * *

Ranma grit his teeth as he dodged another strike by a hair's width and lashed out with a kick, only to be blocked by what had to be the toughest sword case in existence, considering how many times it had been hit/kicked and still not broken. The pigtailed martial artist used it as a springboard to backflip away again, escaping his opponent's range to begin silently planning his next move.

This was ridiculous. He hadn't exactly thought this would be _easy_, but the militaristic girl wasn't even using the blade of her sword, for some reason choosing to instead use only the scabbard and hilt. Yet she wielded them to such effect that it may as well have not mattered.

After her initial charge and clash, the girl had not moved much, instead choosing to stand her ground and wait to attack until Ranma closed in. She fought precisely, economically, only moving when absolutely necessary, but making every one of those movements count. Every time he closed in he was quickly forced back, her attacks too exactly placed to be dodged easily while still in close. Ranma's initial attempts to get behind her and end this quickly with a chop to the neck had both almost ended with a sword sheath in his gut. Her situational awareness was obviously honed to a needlepoint, and though he had come close, all Ranma had been able to land so far were a few glancing blows, which didn't seem to be slowing her down all that much.

The woman's _eyes_ were also incredibly unnerving. Every time Ranma looked at his opponent too closely, he came face to face with a glaring pair of orbs that weren't just watching his every move, but silently _judging _him, as if trying to pierce through his skin in to his very soul. It was a lot like his pops used to do while they were training, but so, _so _ much worse. Ranma had been explicitly avoiding her gaze for that very reason.

All in all, it was very much like fighting Kuno, plus some additional tricks and a much better defense, and minus the obvious, glaring weaknesses. Which unfortunately made her far more formidable than Ranma would've have liked considering her closest comparison was Stick Boy.

Steeling himself, Ranma closed in quickly and made a sweep for her legs, which the swordswoman countered by immediately attempting to ram her sheath in to his pelvis. Ranma smiled as he abandoned the sweep and made to grab the sword cover away, but his opponent quickly opened it to the point he was about to grab, showcasing the shining black blade beneath and forcing him to give up that idea as well, lest he slice his own hand open. Not that it mattered, as the grab turned in to an open handed palm strike aimed at the head- which was somehow ducked under in time for the girl to make a diagonal slash upwards with the once again closed sword sheath, forcing him to back off for the umpteenth time.

Ranma shook his head in annoyance. The good news was, he was fast enough to avoid most everything she had shown thus far, with only basic martial arts for that matter. Besides that chi wave thing she had done earlier, which thankfully she didn't seem to feel like repeating, she hadn't hit him even once- but that still left them at a stalemate. Which posed a problem, in that he didn't want to pull out any of his larger moves until the need for surprise was absolutely necessary, but if he didn't then this might go on forever. For once Ranma actually found himself wishing he had started this battle in his female form. The strength decrease would have been worth the speed boost in this case, as it wouldn't be nearly this hard to get some attacks in if he didn't have to focus on dodging so much.

"...**FOOL!**" the girl abruptly yelled as he zig-zagged in for another attack. Ranma's eyes widened as she suddenly _moved_, he had gotten too used to her standing still-!

The pigtailed boy's momentum was too great to allow him to dodge completely. Before he could readjust to the shift of tactics, the girl's _K__ami forsaken sheath_ buried itself deep within his stomach, sending him flying upwards in a perfect vertical line.

"IF YOU THINK TO FIGHT WITHOUT THE TOTALITY OF YOUR ABILITY, THEN YOU SHALL LEARN WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE A WORM! YOU WILL QUIVER BENEATH OUR HEELS AS WE STRIDE HEEDLESSLY OVERHEAD, FOREVER OUT OF YOUR PITIFUL REACH!" the swordswoman thundered as she readied her sheath once more, poised to strike and strike hard when Ranma inevitably came back down.

Flying high in to the air, Ranma did his best to shake off the blow to his stomach and looked down, gaining a nice bird's eye view of everything.

Hmm, this was kind of nice, actually. There was Ryoga, fighting Jumbo, and both Kunos, lying tied up in the trees nearest the school building... most of the student body, watching him from the roof... a camera flash- that was probably one of Nabiki's crew... and his opponent, pooling energy in her sword sheath directly below him.

Okay, she had obviously been holding back. But hey, so had he. And the pigtailed martial artist had no intention of allowing himself to be hit again.

...maybe it was time to kick this up a notch.

"ALRIGHT LADY, YOU ASKED FOR IT!" Ranma called down as he straightened himself and began to fall from the sky, directly back down towards his opponent. "MOKO TAKABISHA REVISED! DESCENDING PANTHER'S GLORY!"

Ki pooled around Ranma's feet before igniting in a visibly golden aura, burning below him and giving the martial artist the appearance of a falling star. He kicked his toes out and smirked, trying to up his confidence as much as possible before he hit.

The woman smirked as well, looking pleased for perhaps a fraction of a second, and struck upwards with her sheath.

Two considerable sources of chi/ki met and reacted.

**!-TSSSSSHHHHOOOOOOOMMMMM-!**

* * *

AN: Trying to keep the notes for this story relatively short, so I'll endeavor to be brief.

First, a fun fact- originally Mousse was going to participate in a three/four way brawl between Nonon, Hinako, and Shampoo, the latter being aided by himself. Then I decided this would be funnier, so here we are.

If you were wondering, Hinako in child form didn't quite understand (or possibly even listen to) the whole "conquer" thing, hence her lack of stance on that with Nonon. Besides, aside from entering the hallways and being rude, what has Nonon done? Nothing... up until just now, anyways.

I don't bash characters. Akane is losing because although she's headstrong and stubborn enough to keep trying to win, she doesn't have the skill to beat Inumuta (Mr. Analyze/Dodge/Strike himself) in a head on fight. I also don't glorify characters- Gosunkugi is helping because he's in love with Akane, pure and simple. Doesn't mean that his motives of getting with her and basically _killing_ Ranma are any less deluded than they are in canon. Same applies to everyone else. Just getting that out of the way right now.

Finally, Gamagori is exaggerating a bit. It's not like there isn't a disciplinary squad/group still at the school to keep the students in check... he's just not there to head them at the moment. But one **_NEVER_ ENTRUSTS A JOB AS SERIOUS AS UPHOLDING THE RULES TO OTHERS FOR ANY LONGER THAN IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY!**

Any other questions you can either ask about in a review or PM me about- I likely had an answer to it already written down here before deleting it for the sake of not forcing you to read a bunch of extra commentary.

Next chapter, even more chaos! Shocking, right?


	4. Poor Impulse Control

Elsewhere in the city, an unspeakable evil stirred, its higher senses alerting it to the presence of some sort of chi ripple in the nearby vicinity.

"Hmm, now, what could that be?" it wondered aloud, before letting loose a short cackle as it pinpointed where the pulse to its senses had come from. "Furinkan, eh...? Well, now it's my DUTY to investigate! Don't you worry pretty ladies, I'm coming to save you! HOTCHA!"

Grinning lecherously to itself, the thing jumped on to a nearby roof and began heading in the direction of the energy it had sensed- conveniently missing the angry mob that descended upon the area seconds later.

Said mob quickly dispersed when something far more terrifying in appearance came barreling through the vicinity, also in pursuit of "it".

* * *

Genma and Soun were sitting on the Tendo household's patio playing (read: rampantly cheating at) shogi, when a wave of chi splashed over their senses like a giant wet towel to the face.

There was a pause.

"...Perfectly fine day, eh Tendo?"

"Yes, yes, indeed."

And the two went back to their game.

...how utterly predictable.

* * *

Fast forwarding a little, over at Ucchan's Konatsu was sending Tsubasa (currently dressed as a table, complete with plates and decorative flower vase) flying out of the restaurant, acting under Ukyo's orders to keep all items that were not always present in the cafe OUT of her place of business. A few seconds later, Tsubasa could be witnessed arcing over the nearby neighborhoods, by all appearances quite enjoying his pleasantly lengthy hang time. One has to wonder if the guaranteed free ride was the entire reason he bothered showing up, seeing as how he knew perfectly well that Ukyo was at school for the day.

But that is neither here nor there, and not terribly important. Moving on.

* * *

Maomolin the bakeneko stirred in his...

...Okay, wait, why the HELL are we looking at this guy? He's nowhere near any current events right now, nor is he even REMOTELY relevant!

Can we please stop flip flopping around and get back to the **SCHOOL**?!

* * *

"Woah, that's a new one!"

"Yeah, impressive."

"Do you think Ranma makes this stuff up on the spot, or does he just make it LOOK that way?"

"Students, PLEASE tone it down a little..."

"Hey, look! Ryoga's back up and taking on the huge guy over on this side!"

"Who bet what on them again?"

"HAH! Hot guy beat both of 'em! I win, pay up!"

The chatter seemed to grow in volume to become a constant, irritating clamor in a certain teenage chef's ears as she stared down at what had become of the front yard of the school. The ground looked like a bomb had gone off where her Ranchan and the Kiryuin girl had clashed, and the surrounding vicinity indicated much the same thing. The second and third story windows of the front wall of the school were now as broken as the first floor ones, littering the ground below with shattered glass.

Both combatants had been flung away from each other at the collision of energies, Ranma flipping end over end towards the school once again, and his opponent flying backwards over the ground. Ukyo had cheered at that for all of half a second before the girl turned her uncontrolled flight in to a momentum-draining crouch by slamming her scabbard in to the ground mid-tumble, digging it deep enough to bleed off much of her speed and creating a narrow trench leading away from the crater they had made. Unfortunately, due to the near vertical angle, Ukyo couldn't actually see Ranma or if he was okay at the moment. But she _could_ see the long haired girl he'd hit getting back to her feet, not looking terribly injured.

Noticing her breathing was becoming faster, Ukyo tried to calm herself. Ranma had taken on lots of foes this dangerous, right?

...hadn't he?

And that was the droplet of thought that broke the mental dam.

"I don't care if it is a formal challenge! I'm not gonna let that girl kill Ranchan!" Ukyo suddenly shouted, rocketing out of her seated position and startling everyone around her.

She simply couldn't take this anymore. Having not been present for Ranma's more extreme escapades, AKA Incident One, "Herb and the Mountain Kablooey", Incident Two, "China Bird Fun", to a lesser extent Incident 1.5, "How to Fix the World's Biggest Backache", not to mention the Orochi, Taro, Ryu Kumon... honestly, Ukyo had missed out on a quite a lot. Thus, this was seeming more and more from her point of view to be one of the most dangerous battles Ranma had ever been in. Ryoga when he had the Ultimate Shi Shi Hokodan, and perhaps Happosai during the one time he had bothered to fight Ranma seriously- those were about the only fights the chef could think of that even came close to this. And she was not going to just sit around and let her fiance possibly die, "formality" be damned.

The nearby group of boys watched as Ukyo threw open the door to the roof and pelted down the stairs, desperate to get to the fight going on below.

"...hey, wait, so is our bet with her still on?"

"I dunno man, we didn't say anything about her helping."

"Do we win by default then, or is she taking advantage of a loophole?"

"Well, uh..."

* * *

Sanageyama paused and looked over his shoulder as a loud BOOM- or perhaps it was actually a TSHOOM- shook the foundations of the school he was currently walking through the halls of, breaking most of the nearby windows.

Then he turned back around and ignored it completely. It might have been Jakuzure, might have been Gamagori, it might even have been Lady Satsuki- it didn't really matter, since he wasn't there.

The kendoist had left his fellow practitioner and his father where they'd fallen- after all that, they probably wouldn't be getting up for a while. If they were resilient enough to recover that quickly anyways, it wasn't as if they were likely to be going anywhere else, since he'd also tied them up. Sanageyama figured he'd drag them over to Lady Satsuki later- for now, he still had a mission to complete. Conquering a school didn't go about happening on its own after all.

Though, considering he'd just taken out its headmaster, perhaps they already technically had...?

...Nah, best not to assume.

The Athletic Committee Chair frowned while he strode through the empty second floor hallway, replaying the recent fight in his mind. The smoke from that pineapple bomb, not to mention the explosion itself, had gotten right in his eyes. If he hadn't looked away and closed them immediately, even with his uniform they could have been seriously damaged. But what concerned him was that during that small portion of time, he hadn't been able to see anything... and that was a weakness he hadn't even thought about up until now. If the palm tree headed guy hadn't basically screamed out his position, he might actually have been hit- or worse, _shaved_.

In fact, now that he thought about it, there were an awful lot of things that could block sight during combat, and in those sort of situations his Tengantsu would be useless. That was a problem. Maybe he needed to-

"Out of my way!"

Sanageyama blinked. A girl (at least, he was fairly certain it was a girl if his eyes were analyzing the creases in her gakuran correctly) had just come barreling around the corner of the hall, and was now running right for him with what looked to be a giant...

...Was that a spatula?

Before he had time to ponder the oddity all that long, the girl rushed forward and swiped at him with the broad side of her oversized... weapon? Sanageyama was pretty sure it was a weapon. Regardless, it was easily blocked by driving the end of his shinai in to the center of it, stopping its forward momentum entirely. The unusual tool's wielder jumped back and holstered her stupidly large kitchen implement, before pulling several, more normal sized spatulas from a bandoleer she had strapped around- okay, they had some WEIRD fighting styles around here.

A small storm of (apparently sharpened) spatulas came flying at the kendoist before being swiftly knocked off course by a length of bamboo.

"Oy, I know you're one of that girl's cronies, but I don't have time to fight you! Move it!" the unknown girl yelled, apparently quite frantic to get past him for some reason.

Sanageyama raised an eyebrow at that, a touch annoyed. _She_ had initiated combat, not him. Sure, he probably would have had to detain her anyways seeing as how she was a possible Honnouji Academy candidate (at least, going by that... _unique_ fighting style), but he might not have even known that if she hadn't just attacked him, so she could have gone by without incident.

Oh well. Take the opportunities presented to you and all that.

"Nah, think I'll stick around." Sanageyama responded, smirking and twirling his sword around his fingers before readjusting his grip on it. "Got a job to do, and I kinda like fighting, if ya' get my drift."

"Figures..." the girl muttered, discretely sticking her hand in to a pouch to search for something. Sanageyama decided to let her, in the interest of fairness.

"So, I take it you know what happens now." he commented, grinning. "Gonna give me a name before you try using whatever it is you're looking for?"

"Sure." the girl replied, smiling as well. "It's Kuonji Ukyo, JACKASS!"

A packet of some sort was thrown in his direction, and that was the last thing Sanageyama saw before the world exploded in a cloud of white.

* * *

Akane and Gosunkugi stared in shock as a blinding transformation took place. The windows of the corridor all shattered in tandem just as the blue light surrounding their opponent flared outward, further driving in the dramatic nature of the scene.

All three of them managed to miss the real reason the windows had broken. To the two who weren't currently in the middle of a transformation sequence, it seemed to have happened solely to hammer in just how bad things were looking for them right now. The other one managed to miss it entirely, and would later be left to wonder exactly when and why the windows had unanimously decided to vacate their positions.

When the light cleared, the same sky blue-haired boy as before stood before the two Furinkan students, except now he was clad in an outfit that was bizarre even by Neriman standards. It was mainly black in color, with glowing green keyboards adorning the upper legs, as well as both sections of each arm. The middle section was partially see through, exposing about 80-90% of the wearer's upper body, aside from what was hidden by what appeared to be a symbol created by merging three four-pointed stars- much like the ones Akane had noted on the neck of her opponent's former outfit, in fact. The hips were covered by some sort of bizarre circular scanner things, while wires extended from and led back to various points on the same limbs they originated from. This culminated in a series of smaller wires which covered the shoulder, neck, and chin area, and fed directly in to a V shaped visor that now covered the boy's eyes in lieu of his previous blue-tinted glasses.

The primary visual effect was that overall, the student council member looked very much like he had stepped straight out of Tron.

...That, or some sort of virtual-world based erotica novel. It really depended on one's perspective.

"Three Star Goku Uniform, **Probe Regalia**." the wearer of said outfit commented off hand. "I hardly need this to deal with either of you, but it should lessen the effort required, and will at least make this slightly less_ boring_."

His primary opponent responded by staring in part-shock, part-wonder, and part-disbelief. The other one had finally realized just who he was being held by, and was currently experiencing critical brain failure from simultaneous bliss and fear at the situation.

_'I've been fighting a MAGICAL BOY?' _Akane privately wondered, no longer sure if she was dreaming or not.

The boy in question gave a knowing smile at his opponent's apparent stupefaction.

"Data is all I care about, and your delaying me nearly led to the possible destruction of much of what I've acquired up to this point. As it is, the casing has been damaged- and you both will be PAYING for that."

Akane's eyes widened as her opponent set his laptop (still cradled under his arm up until now) back down, before proceeding to completely fade from sight.

Her opponent could turn invisible. _Lovely_. As if he hadn't been impossible to hit before...

Gosunkugi- whose name Akane had finally managed to remember- was currently even more useless than usual, lost in his love/terror induced stupor. Akane gently laid him on the floor- she really needed her arms free right now.

The laptop. The laptop was his weak point. If she could get to it and hold it hostage, she'd have won. Maybe not in terms of straight up martial arts, but that jerk would be forced to surrender if it was threatened, assuming he really cared about that thing as much as he said he did. And given his previous reaction, Akane definitely believed it.

Cautiously, the Tendo girl took a couple of pained steps towards the miniature computer. She needed to be on guard, an attack would almost certainly be coming any moment now. The martial artist could imagine her imperceptible opponent standing right behind her, or in front of her, or- well, anywhere, really...

...not that he seemed to be stopping her. Or even making an effort to do so, really.

"...hold on, did he leave?" Akane quietly wondered aloud.

A palm thrust to the chin, harder than anything that had come before it, quickly dispelled her of that notion as the unseen attack sent her sprawling. The tech-obsessed boy's voice spoke mockingly from directly in front of her previous position.

"You know, normally, I would. I've wasted too much time as it is. But you and that boy nearly cost me my computer, and perhaps I'm feeling a bit vindictive because of that. So!"

Akane struggled back to her feet as an unseen hand held up the pale boy she'd left lying on the floor by the collar of his uniform.

"Now, what to do about you?" the same disembodied voice spoke to the trembling student, who had snapped out of his mini-coma only to find himself seemingly being held up by the air. "You're a practically defenseless opponent- and I use the term loosely- but you DID nearly break my laptop, and it's not as if there isn't precedent for such things at Honnouji Aca-"

But before the statement could be finished, Akane stumbled over and lashed out at the air in front of the "floating" boy. She felt her fist graze something- it was only a glancing blow, but the invisible teen seemed to let go at the mere touch anyways, dropping Gosunkugi bonelessly to the floor once more.

Akane grinned at the small victory, until again the voice sounded from nowhere.

"Hmm. Here I figured you to be too injured and exhausted to even keep trying, especially after my last attack. I suppose if there's one thing I can say about you, it's that you're persistent, even in the most pointless of endeavors."

Akane could practically feel the smugness being exuded from somewhere nearby.

"JUST COME OUT AND FIGHT ME **FAIRLY** YOU PERVERT!" Akane screamed in frustration.

The mocking voice returned an answer far more calmly, directly in her ear. "No need to scream, I'm right here."

An invisible foot buried itself in Akane's stomach, doubling her over.

"Also- pervert? Really? I know this outfit is skintight, but it covers me fully. My strategy requires minimum movement encumbrance, and you can't even see me right now anyways. Very rude."

Akane coughed and rose to her feet once more, every inch a struggle by this point. For some reason, no further attacks came- maybe it was because her attacker was too busy fixating on the "pervert" descriptor that she'd just given him, but to Akane it felt more like he had paused simply because he enjoyed _toying_ with her. He was _deliberately_ drawing things out now, as if just to watch and see how many times she'd get back up, wasn't he?!

The voice the Tendo girl had so quickly come to loathe echoed from seemingly everywhere within the corridor.

"You know, even if I was stupid enough to actually reveal myself as you suggested, you _surely_ have realized by this point that I can dodge any attack you make, with or without this uniform activated. But if you actually somehow haven't, then by all means, keep trying! I'm sure you'll get me eventually!"

The infuriating laughter that followed rang in Akane's ears until she once again was seeing red. She NEEDED to be figure out where he was-!

The martial artist's eyes desperately scanned the vicinity, but all she could see was a ruined hallway. There was no sign of her opponent's presence- no slight displacement of air, no sound of footsteps on the cracked and cratered floor...

The floor...

A crazy idea began to form.

Akane reached her right hand behind her back, preparing to grab a certain object in a few moments while keeping it hidden behind her back. Her opponent seemed to be in no rush to reveal his position again just yet- this was just the chance she needed...

Quickly grabbing a chunk of rubble from the floor with her left hand, Akane tossed it towards the computer lying in the corner.

"NO!"

The air seemed to distort and catch the small piece of debris, long before it closed the distance to the laptop.

Of course, actually hitting the piece of tech hadn't been the point. Akane just needed her opponent to be far enough away for a moment that he couldn't stop her next move.

"**HOW DARE YO-**"

Akane wasn't listening.

"HEY KEYBOARD CLOD! DODGE **THIS**!" she screamed over top the furious words.

And with that, she grabbed Gosunkugi's limp body, and drove an oversized mallet directly in to the floor.

* * *

Nabiki had known when she started hearing sounds of combat coming from not too far outside the room that they would probably have to abandon the classroom at some point. When all the windows blew in from the force of Ranma's attack colliding with the Kiryuin girl's, she took that as the obvious sign it was and figured that point was now. This place had only made a good temporary base of operations because it was close enough to the action to see almost everything, but far enough away that no one would get hit. Or at least, that was the idea, because apparently it wasn't quite far enough after all.

"Okay people, time to pack up and move out." Nabiki called over the dull roar of most of the school's gambling crowd, who were mostly oblivious to everything but what was going on outside the windows.

"Aww, how come?" someone immediately complained as they drew their head back inside.

"Yeah, this place has a great view, why can't we stay here?"

The mercenary girl held up a finger. **"**Consider the fact that the windows all the way up to this floor just shattered, and I think you'll find the answer all on your own."**  
**

Despite the snark, Nabiki's actual point was sound- the battle was getting heated enough that they weren't safe where they were anymore. The school in general probably wasn't safe, honestly. They had gotten off lucky just now, as by virtue of being open, the room they were in now owned the only set of non-shattered third floor windows on the front of the school- but who knew how long that sort of luck would last?

Naturally, that still wasn't enough for some of the more stubborn students.

"Oh come on, this school was built and repaired by Neriman contractors! We're safer here than anywhere else!"

"Right, what do we have to worry abou-"

**!-!-CRAAAAASSSSSH-!-!**

The entire room cried out in surprise as a loud crash, accompanied by its own miniature tremor, resounded from somewhere INSIDE the school- and from very close by, at that.

"...How about now?" Nabiki deadpanned in the following silence.

There was a resounding clamor of agreement as people immediately began filing out of the room.

* * *

The Anything Goes Martial Artist locally known as "Ranma" was currently hiding inside a classroom, running various battle scenarios against the military lady through his head.

When their chi had met, it had practically _detonated_, flinging both of them away at an angle. This just so happened to launch Ranma directly through a broken second floor window, unintentionally forcing a use of the Saotome Secret Technique: Fast Break- which worked fine, since he needed to plan his next move carefully.

He knew he could beat this girl, but he would need to be careful if he wanted to avoid getting injured any further. That will-enforced chi of hers had given her sheath so much power that his stomach hurt more than if Ryoga had gone a few rounds with it. So what did he know so far?

Well, she had proved herself to be fast enough to block his normal attacks, and was skilled with using both her blade and its casing. Presumably she wasn't actually trying to kill him, or that extremely sharp sword would be seeing more use- either that, or she was reserving it until the fight reached a certain level, much like he had been doing with his own attacks. Also, she could use chi, and while she wasn't on his or Ryoga's level in terms of actual capacity, the fact that she was drawing it out and channeling it through sheer force of determination and will more than made up for it. However, she didn't seem terribly attack resistant, so far as he could tell, so she probably didn't do much physical training without her sword. If only he was fast enough to _capitalize_ on that, or get her sword and sheath away from her...

Wait, he was in the school now! There was probably a bathroom or water fountain around here somewhe-

"**Saotome!**"

Ranma put his thought process on hold at hearing his opponent's voice, and stealthily peeked out one of the room's broken windows- she had recovered well. Incredibly well, in fact. She looked to be a bit roughed up, but not too badly injured, and now she was simply standing and... staring directly at him. Damn it.

"I had not taken you to be one to turn and run before a battle's end!" his opponent called out to him. "Regardless, hiding will not avail you! You could not flee even if you hastened to the very ends of Earth! Will you choose to face your fate here and now, or wait until it inevitably ensnares your trembling back?"

She was obviously goading him, but it still set Ranma's teeth on edge. It wasn't as if he'd come up here deliberately, and running away was a perfectly viable tactic as long as it was only temporary!

The martial artist took a moment to think up a couple choice words to shoot back in return, but by the time he opened his mouth the girl had started talking again. "I would think the answer to be obvious, but if you cannot make up your mind then it seems I will have to force your hand."

Oh, that couldn't be good.

Ranma's danger sense went off just in time for him to leap away from the window as the room's outward facing wall suddenly gained huge slashes on all four of its sides, effectively cutting a large rectangular chunk of the building away from the rest of it. The wall slowly began to lean forward, before falling entirely off the rest of the building and smashing in to the ground below, leaving Ranma completely exposed in the now five sided room. The woman below was glaring intently at him, her once-again unsheathed sword the obvious culprit of the recent wall vivisection.

Great. He was a sitting duck if he remained where he was, and his opponent was only going to get angrier if he ran further in to go get water- at this rate she could bring the entire school down on his head. Which would hurt, but more importantly, everyone was still on TOP of the school, not to even mention how much more property damage would be caused (which the principal would probably blame on him, and then demand his pigtail in compensation).

Choosing to try and put off further unscheduled school demolition for a while, Ranma jumped down and cautiously began to walk back towards his opponent.

"I trust you are prepared to continue now?" the woman he faced asked calmly as he approached, greatly contrasting with the severe look in her eyes.

Instead of responding to her question (which had been rhetorical anyways), Ranma chose to speak his mind.

"I hope ya' realize there are people on and in the school, right?" he asked, a dangerous glint in his eyes warning that a wrong response would lead to some unpleasant places.

"I do indeed. Rest assured, I measured my attack to avoid compromising the building's integrity any more than necessary. I would prefer to avoid any casualties."

Well, at least she had respect enough for human life that she wasn't trying to kill innocent bystanders.

"Why exactly are ya' doin' this anyways?" Ranma asked, still not exactly sure why this was happening besides his life simply being full of things like this.

"If you did not understand before, then it is unimportant."

That seemed to mark the end of the conversation, as his opponent sprinted forward with her sheathed sword raised high.

Ranma sighed. He hadn't wanted to have to do this to a girl, at least not unless he was in girl form himself. It would have been a lot easier to pull off, not to mention much more effective.

Oh well. He'd just have to make do with the current circumstances.

Ranma darted in to meet the woman, boosting his speed slightly with chi and angling around the sheath that passed over his shoulder. This put him in the perfect position for what he planned to do.

"KACHU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!"

* * *

Satsuki suddenly found herself on the receiving end of a blazing storm of punches, thrown at a velocity her eyes could barely even follow. She quickly began to back away, only to be pursued just as quickly, forcing her to face the onslaught of fists. The Kiryuin girl managed to block around half of them, prioritizing her more vital areas, before realizing after a couple seconds that the best way to get out of this would be to strike back. Fast.

With no time to concentrate for a chi burst, Satsuki instead unsheathed Bakuzan and swung it horizontally towards Saotome's kneecaps. His eyes widened- he clearly hadn't been expecting to have to deal with the actual sword again right now, and was forced to execute a quick jump and cut off his attack to avoid having his legs sliced off- exactly as Satsuki had planned.

As the pressure wave created by the swing rent chunks of ground upwards directly behind her airborne opponent, Satsuki stepped forward and struck at his solar plexus with the sheath in her left hand, smiling sardonically as she saw him preparing to grab it (likely so he could push off of it to propel himself backwards and out of range) before it struck. Having figured he would attempt something like that, the militaristic girl quickly filled the sword case with her chi, forcing it past his hands and in to where she wanted it before letting the energy surge out of the tip, right as full impact was made.

Her opponent was blasted backwards at near sonic speeds, his back smashing in to the chunks of ground that had been uprooted a moment ago as he went. Eventually striking the ground itself, he rolled and dropped out of sight in to the crater they had so recently made. Satsuki gave a sigh of relief and resheathed Bakuzan- her gambit had worked.

Unfortunately, the damage was already done- she had just been beaten like a particularly serious drum. Saotome had been counting on her being too surprised to react appropriately for a few crucial seconds, much as she had done to him only a few minutes ago, and it had worked. She had been careless. Thankfully, he hadn't been aiming at her head, which had made blocking other vital points slightly easier- but she was still severely pummeled, especially around her shoulders and arms. Satsuki assumed this was to cripple her primary method of attack, which it would. No matter how well she could bite back pain, it would still slow her down. Given the speed Saotome had just shown, that was a problem.

He could have done that at any time, she was certain. Maybe he couldn't do it often- surely a barrage that quick would be exhausting for _anyone _to do more than occasionally- but he still could have done it whenever he wanted. He just hadn't felt the need too up until now. Satsuki smiled despite herself- truly, he was a formidable opponent.

The good news was, she was more durable than Saotome seemed to have expected, and so was still able to continue. The bad news was, not durable enough that she wouldn't be pained and noticeably slower when she did so. Satsuki had never needed life fiber enhanced clothing before, because she had been perfectly capable without them. The thought of being forced to wear those disgusting things was repulsive to her, even though she knew that in order to revolt against her mother, she would likely have to don her "wedding dress" one day. It was an inescapable truth- but until that time, she had sworn to forsake them, and had trained herself to a level where she could combat life fibers without relying on their strength.

But here was a warrior whose abilities seemingly came wholly from training, much like her own- his clothes were not enhanced in any way, so he was fighting entirely of his own power. His skill was at least on par with hers; probably higher, in fact, as he had clearly been holding back earlier. His chi attack had been impure, so fueled by emotion that it lost a fair amount of energy to light, but it had still been more than enough to match her own.

Satsuki could admit it. To win this fight, she might just need life fiber assistance after all- but at the moment, they were not an option. The demonic _thing_ that waited for her at Kiryuin Manor was many miles away, and she didn't exactly have a spare goku uniform on hand right now.

Well then. She'd just have to get creative.

* * *

Gamagori grunted with effort as he was forced back several steps by a punch with the force of a comet behind it.

This had been an... _interesting_ match thus far. The boy he was facing somehow contained even more raw strength than he did, without a goku uniform enhancing his attacks. How that was even possible, Gamagori was uncertain, but he very nearly shuddered to think of what the teen could do with one.

As he grabbed and halted yet another punch that would have blasted through a concrete wall (those were really starting to hurt his palms) before tossing its thrower backwards, the three star student quietly ruminated on how odd it was that people did not seem to announce their full names before fighting around this area. The lack of that practice was actually somewhat inconvenient- inconvenient in that the Disciplinary Committee Chair was having a hard time initiating any sort of mid battle conversation without knowing his opponent's last name. He certainly couldn't use the teen's first name- or at least, he was fairly sure 'Ryoga' was the rugged boy's first, not last name- and his opponent certainly wasn't taking the initiative, so the battle had been rather awkwardly silent for the last few minutes. Even the enormous wave of energy that had slammed over them from right nearby hadn't "broken the ice" at all, and the battle had just continued as if nothing had happened.

A flurry of hardened, razor sharp bandanas were smashed to the side by one of the enormous red whips built in to Gamagori's uniform, which then lashed out towards the recently flying cloth's source. It carved small furrows in to the ground where the person he was fighting no longer was, as the rugged looking boy had quickly backed up at the sight of the long range weapon. He seemed to be growing angrier with every passing second.

Gamagori frowned, an expression his face was quite familiar with. Lady Satsuki was counting on him to test not just his opponent's strength, but also his resolve. If he backed down under intimidation, then he certainly wasn't fit to join their council or learn of what was going on all around them. But the Disciplinary Committee Chair was so used to talking like... well, a disciplinarian, that he was finding himself hard pressed to think of things to say that did not involve rule breaking or misconduct. And since they were only visiting this school, he had no actual authority here until the place was under their control, which only compounded the problem posed by the lack of a full/last name. Thus, Gamagori was having some major difficulties in making sure that the equally strong teen he faced would not surrender under both verbal and physical assault.

His opponent leaped back and whipped his belt off, somehow straightened it like a rod, and whipped it cleanly through the base of a tree. Before it could fall, the bandana clad boy wrapped his arms just above the cut and _lifted_ the entire thing over his head, primed to smash it down like the world's most impractical club.

Granted, his surrender wasn't exactly looking likely right now, but the point still stood.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY!" the infuriated boy screamed, unknowingly echoing a certain chef's identical recent sentiments as he swung the improvised bludgeon down.

Gamagori was not about to simply stand by and let himself get hit by a tree. Instead, he struck out with his whip, which wrapped around the top of the trunk, and snapped his weapon in such a way that the tree was pulled backwards to lean right over top its carrier.

Despite his strength, Gamagori's opponent proved unable to resist the sheer inertia of a tree now at a 45 degree angle to the ground, and fell- only to be crushed underneath his own "weapon" half a second later.

The Disciplinary Committee Chair stood and waited. Given the teen's remarkable resiliency, he likely wouldn't stay pinned for very long.

"BAKUSAI TENKETSU!"

The tree _exploded_ at its base, whereupon the teen who had just been squashed beneath it jumped up again, looking very little worse for wear and even angrier than before.

Gamagori sighed. As he had expected. This battle was going nowhere, on any front- perhaps it was time to simply outright ask.

"Your name."

The opposing teenager's near-tangible anger quieted slightly, replaced by confusion. "Huh?"

"What is your name?" the Disciplinary Committee Chair repeated.

"...Why do you care?"

"It's simply common courtesy."

"Courtesy?! You're attacking me for no reason and trying to prevent me from leaving!"

"I explained myself once already."

"Well I sure as hell didn't hear it then!"

"If what I've witnessed thus far has been any indication, that is because you are rather talented at ignoring people when it suits you to do so."

That had been the wrong thing to say, as his conversation partner's fury was instantly reignited.

"GRAHHHHHHHH, JUST _GO AWAY_! SHI SHI HOKODAN!"

Gamagori braced himself and winced as he took the energy blast to the chest- he had seen and been hit by several already by this point- before shaking his head in dismay. Well, that hadn't worked.

More bandanas, this time thrown in a curving formation from both the left and the right, came spiraling towards him. Gamagori's whip flew through the air around him, acting as a barrier to knock the pieces of cloth away before heading for their thrower. However, this time the snaking red length was blocked by... an umbrella? But wasn't that thing only made of paper...?

The same umbrella was promptly thrown in to the air and began circling around towards Gamagori, slicing through yet another innocent tree on its way- right, that thing had made a sizable dent in the ground earlier. It was obviously NOT a normal umbrella.

The three star swiftly turned and grabbed the shaft of the bamboo implement out of the air, halting its progress towards his head, but throwing the disciplinarian completely off balance due to its enormous weight. How had this thing been airborne a moment ago?!

As he struggled with the incomprehensibly heavy-yet-apparently-light-enough-to-fly tool, Gamagori saw out of the corner of his eye that his opponent was charging, only a second away from being close enough to body slam him.

Clever- the umbrella had been a diversion. He wouldn't be able to block or dodge properly in time even if he let go now, as he wasn't properly positioned. The Disciplinary Committee Chair resigned himself to this and prepared as best he could for impact.

...and then a giant purple laser burst out of the side of the school, slamming right in to the charging boy's side and launching him sideways in an uncontrolled tumble.

Gamagori blinked.

* * *

-A few minutes ago-

"Three Star Goku Uniform,** Symphony Regalia Da Capo**!" Nonon crowed, finishing her transformation in a stance that would have been far more imposing had she been about a foot taller.

Not bothering to watch for her audience's reaction, Nonon looked down at herself, made a disgruntled face, and clicked her tongue in irritation. This was just another reason for her to hate going anywhere unaccompanied by her band and orchestra- without the instruments to form the tank of her uniform, she was stuck going straight to Da Capo form, which was just plain _wrong_. The encore was NOT supposed to be the main show.

Well, it would probably be enough for this anyways. But next time she was settling for no less than what a uniform titled "Symphony" should rightfully command.

Personal inspection over, Nonon looked towards her two opponents and found one to be vaguely puzzled, while the other just looked annoyed.

"Just because Hat Girl change clothing not mean she threat!" yelled Purple Hair, the irritated one.

"Do you intend to fight us?" asked Woman Child, the confused one.

The conductor rolled her eyes. Apparently, Beach Ball couldn't remember the name she had literally just given out all of a minute ago, and Vampire Coin still was having trouble grasping what was going on. She bet if she had her tank this would be going a bit differently...

"Heh, I'm sure you'll both get it soon enough!" Nonon announced, not truly directing it to either of the other two people in the hall. "Now, which one first..."

The three star looked back and forth from teenager to teacher before deciding that Purple Hair, as the more annoying one, took priority.

Smirking, she readied her hat. "Hey, bimbo with the beach balls, or whatever your name is- if you can understand me, you're up first."

The girl bristled. "Shampoo understand you just fine. If that was insult, know that Joketsuzoku women not take such things lightly!"

Now she was just spouting gibberish. Whatever.

"Yeah, I guess it was!" Nonon taunted with a wide grin, readjusting her hold on the thin white baton in her hand to grip it like a dagger. "Planning on doing something about it, Bimbo-chan?"

That did it. The purple haired girl lunged, clearly not expecting much out of her "opponent", but determined to get her back for the comments she'd just made.

Nonon dodged directly to the side, quickly turned towards the girl who'd suicidally made it so she couldn't dodge or even change course, and brought her hat to bear.

"Let's see if you're more well taught in music than you are at Japanese! I bet even you recognize this one!"

The sound of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5: "Fate" surged through the hallway as Purple Hair was sent flying backwards, bursting back-first through several walls and classrooms before finally being expelled from the school entirely.

Nonon grinned with near sadistic pleasure at that. Just because her opponent wasn't wearing Life Fiber clothing didn't mean an energy blast wasn't still an energy blast. The three star hadn't been planning on taking the girl out so quickly, but she'd made herself too perfect a target to resist. Honestly, who jumped to attack someone they knew nearly nothing about almost _literally_ head first?

"Well, that was quick! Guess she wasn't worth the trouble after all." the pink haired girl commented, closing her eyes in mock disappointment but continuing to smile. She took a second to relish the moment before spinning to face her next opponent.

"Now, as for yo-"

Something seemed to go wrong midway through her sentence, as Nonon felt the strength she had gained from transforming her uniform unexpectedly vanish.

She looked down- her outfit had gone back to its neutral state, and she hadn't deactivated it. Wait, how-?!

The conductor looked up in shock to find Woman Child staring back, looking equally surprised.

Her coin remained pointed directly at Nonon, figuratively smoking.

* * *

Shampoo wasn't certain of exactly what had occurred within the last ten seconds. One moment she'd been charging for the annoying, fun-sized little girl who'd just insulted her, the next she was flying bonelessly through the air, her world full of nothing but purple as she crashed through a bunch of hard objects. Also, some annoying orchestral piece had been playing for some reason, which was still ringing in her ears as she tried to get her bearings.

She looked down to figure out what uncomfortably heavy thing had fallen on her and found a certain tiger stripe covered head half buried between her breasts. The nose of this head was staining Shampoo's top with blood even as she processed the situation.

Muffled babbling from within the crevice of her chest quickly ensued.

"Uh-uhm-mm, I-I didn't, d-didn't mean to- I mean I-"

"STUPID PIG BOY! GET OFF SHAMPOO!" the amazon yelled, all but throwing him off of her person as she tried to stand up.

She had been blasted outside the school, apparently. Those hard things she'd been crashing through must have been the walls, and then Ryoga himself. The Joketsuzoku warrior's legs weren't working as well as they should have, but at least she could walk. What kind of attack had that girl HIT her with?

Shampoo grimaced- the effect had probably been compounded by crashing in to Pig Boy, whose body was practically harder than steel thanks to the Bakusai Tenketsu training. She was still fuming that her Great Grandmother wouldn't teach her that yet for some reason. She had more than enough concentra-

A blur of red and black flashing from beyond the treeline broke her train of thought. She could hear a yell of pain accompanying it.

"Airen!"

Shampoo was filled with new purpose as she ran towards the fighting she could see from between the trees, completely forgetting about her quarrel with the pink haired one. Her beloved needed her help!

* * *

The Disciplinary Committee Chair stared as the girl who'd come rocketing out of the broken wall ran away, and then back at his now-downed opponent. Blood was still leaking from his nostrils.

..._what_ had just happened?

* * *

AN: A few- er, well, an EXTENSIVE few notes, hopefully made up for by the extra long chapter above.

Concerning how everyone is acting around each other despite this being after the end of the manga- status quo is virtually ALWAYS enforced in Ranma world. Ryoga has given up on Akane multiple times before, only to end up right back where he started. Ranma has had tender moments with Akane before where they've both tried to admit their feelings, only to end up right back where they started. The only thing to ever change in Nerima is its ever growing loon occupancy, not previous attitudes or relationships (unless they are added to in complexity). If you think that the end of the manga changes anything in that regard, as I know many people do (because continuation fics and a justification for a leap to drama are irresistible for many fanfic writers), we simply differ in opinion, I'm afraid. To me it seems inevitable that they'll slip right back in to old habits, because that is their collective nature, as well as that of the world that they live in.

Also, because EVERYONE (or rather, everyone who watched KLK) keeps asking about this, YES I will probably be doing either a continuation or sequel concerning KLK's plot, YES Ryuko will show up, and YES whatever happens at the end of this will come in to play. Thank you for your interest, I hope that you'll bear with me on this fic until we get there. :)

The mallet. This is not Akane's signature _anything_, in case we've forgotten. Nearly half the cast of Ranma 1/2 uses the ability to pull mallets out of nowhere at least once, its just that Akane does it most often. If you can call it "often", considering that even for a running gag, it doesn't show up as much as people think it does. Please do not yell at me for giving Akane a legitimate reason to use it.

I'm fairly certain, after extensive research of the incidents mentioned, that Ukyo has surprisingly NOT been present for... pretty much any of the big, more serious encounters, by which I mean they have either serious risk of death or injury and/or a totally serious opponent. **Including** the ones the anime didn't make. Which I find odd, but maybe her fighting style was just too limited or silly seeming to bring her in to the more dramatic situations. If I'm wrong, please correct me- but in a PM, preferably.

Names are said in the Japanese manner because it just doesn't sound right to have the KLK crew say their own any other way, so the Ranma cast had to follow for consistency. That's all there is to say about that.

And finally, on a more-or-less menial note, it amuses me that everyone, EVERYONE (or at least it sure FEELS like everyone) talks about Saffron being a "God" and Ranma defeating a "God", and yet everyone forgets about Rouge (the "backache" reference, for those wondering). Admittedly, Rouge was fighting both Ranma and Taro at the time, and it wasn't a fight to the death, but she was probably at least as dangerous as Saffron was, being_ explicitly_ a God/Demon (if only in cursed form) who, in addition to having a similar "fire tornado" attack to Saffron and Ranma's flaming Hiryu Shoten Ha battleground, could _blast lightning out of her hands_. But her battle wasn't treated as "seriously" as Saffron's (thus no one dies and the worst that happens is people get stunned/comically charred), her personality doesn't lend itself as well to the tyrant treatment, and her appearance didn't have any real long term consequences, so she's always forgotten. No love for that girl in the Ranma fandom...

Okay, viewpoint explanation and uber length author note done now. No worries, there shouldn't be any more of these. We now return to your regularly scheduled nutso-crossover.


	5. Suspicions Rise, Assumptions Made

In the shadows of the Furinkan High School courtyard, an extremely small woman balanced atop a length of wood quietly observed her surroundings. Of particular interest were the four extremely odd chi signatures spread throughout the area, which danced before her senses like flames come alive.

They were partially human, yet partially not. Further scrutiny revealed that two of them seemed... compressed, somehow, though they still stood out quite a bit compared to any normal person's. The other two signatures lacked this quality, and blazed like beacons before her, their energy shining like miniature suns. As she watched, one signature suddenly went from bright to dim in an instant, which raised an eyebrow- apparently something had not just forced the source of that chi back to "dormancy", but had weakened it to the point that it barely registered to her senses at all. All that was left was a mere flicker- as well as the now normal looking human aspect it had been overlapping with.

Cologne raised a wizened finger to her lips.

What _were_ these strange entities...?

She turned to her right to look at the girl in the altered military uniform, who seemed to be fighting her son-in-law for some reason. The girl's chi was not nearly as strange as the others, but was still worth notice due to how tightly _controlled_ it was- its owner exhibited a jurisdiction over her own life energy that was very nearly on par with an elder's. She still didn't have anywhere near the reserves of one, but she clearly knew how to use what she had. Even as the observer watched her son-in-law surprise his opponent- with the very first move she had taught him, no less- the girl quickly disengaged by lashing out with a lethal strike she obviously didn't intend to actually make contact, setting up her next move in the same instant. She anticipated where and how her enemy would dodge, immediately saw through his defense strategy, and solved that problem in an instant, sending him flying backwards in the culmination of a deeply impressive tactical maneuver.

The amazon elder narrowed her eyes as a purple haired girl she just so happened to recognize emerged from the trees to the courtyard's left, running with notable stiffness towards the girl in white.

Foolish girl, always rushing in. No, that simply wouldn't do right now.

* * *

Shampoo was quite surprised when a flash of green and brown seemingly teleported in front of her, forcing her to grind to a halt.

"...Great-grandmother?"

The amazon girl shook her head in confusion, switching to Mandarin before continuing. "Why are you here? How did you know where I-"

"You've been out for an awfully long time for a single delivery, child."

Shampoo blushed. Okay, so she hadn't actually gotten _permission_ to deliver Ranma anything... but the herb was going to lose its effects if she didn't use it soon, and her great-grandmother hadn't been there at the time to ask, so... well, not that it mattered NOW, but...

"As for how I knew where you were, it didn't take long after coming back from the market to find that Mr. Part Time had abandoned his post as well. And as he only risks shirking his duties when Son-in-Law is involved..."

Shampoo's blush turned to a pout. Stupid Mousse...

"I had to close the cafe, you realize. A restaurant without half its staff can hardly stay functioning during the peak of lunch."

The younger amazon blanched. Oh. Oh, this was bad. This was VERY bad. A pay dock would probably be the least of her worries if the entire restaurant was out a day of profits. She might even be forced to-

Cologne sighed and held up a hand, cutting off Shampoo's visions of horror. "I suppose it's just as well. A wave of chi as large as the one that was emitted from here is a concern on any level, so I would have had to close up shop for the day regardless."

Her great-granddaughter began to give a great heaving sigh of relief, before catching herself and suppressing it to a quiet whisper. Cologne mentally snickered.

"Now, was the energy wave produced by that girl there, your wayward husband, or both?" she asked, gesturing to the woman in white and the crater (which the "husband" was currently making his way out of) in turn.

Pointing out the battle only made the Chinese girl remember why she had been heading that way to begin with.

"Aiyah! Great-grandmother, I have to help Airen!"

Shampoo didn't make it a foot before the neck of her outfit was tugged backwards, nearly causing her feet to slip out from under her. The amazon girl managed to recover in time and turned back around, unsure why she was being kept from assisting her love.

"No Xian Pu, we will sit back and observe. There is more to that girl and those I assume she brought with her than meets the eye, and it isn't hard to tell that you've been injured."

Cologne shook her head as her protege grew red with embarrassment. "I take it from the color you're turning that you lost. Who were you fighting?

"Some girl I'd never seen before, who barely comes up to my chest..." Shampoo murmured quietly. "She surprised me with some sort of energy attack, and I ended up outside..."

The elder Joketsuzoku nodded. "I see. Do not fear, child, I'm not angry." she continued, surprising Shampoo, who had been waiting for a verdict. "If you were fighting one of the people I'm observing right now, a loss was an acceptable outcome. Did you administer the Kiss of Death?"

Shampoo cursed under her breath and dropped her head in to her hands- she'd forgotten entirely. She'd really screwed up a lot in the past half hour or so... "No, I was... distracted. Apologies, Great-grandmother. As soon as the girl shows back up-"

"No."

Shampoo blinked. "No?" she repeated.

"I do not believe that would be wise in this situation, and I am glad you did not make a snap decision this time as you did the first time Son-in-Law defeated you. As the presiding Joketsuzoku elder, I give you exemption in this case."

...But she'd wanted to get revenge on that girl...

"As I said, we will have to wait and observe for now. There are far too many unknowns at the moment for us to safely involve ourselves, as I'm sure your injuries can attest too. Son-in-Law will be just fine without our help."

Shampoo didn't quite understand, but as it was both the will of an elder and an order from her great-grandmother, she had no choice but to comply. Retreating to the shadow cast by the school's small perimeter wall, she turned her attention back to the confrontation she was not being allowed to interfere with.

"Do your best, Ranma..." Shampoo whispered as she watched her husband reengage the girl in white.

Only a minute or so later, something in the sky heading towards the front of the school caught both amazon women's attention. Shampoo turned around and looked up, squinting at the object as it approached.

"Great-grandmother, is that...?"

* * *

Ukyo ran through the hallway towards the stairs, a grin crossing her face as she heard frustrated cursing following a good ways behind her. It was lucky that Kuno and that guy had been yelling at each other loudly enough to be heard even up on the roof, because that cockiness had given the teenage chef some easy insight in to the latter of the two's weakness. Since he had been bragging about how great his eyes were for the first half of the fight, Ukyo had taken an educated guess that he was much less effective without them (even more so than most people would be), and decided to capitalize on that. A flour bomb was most useful as a smokescreen, but it wasn't as if grains of powder flying in to someone's corneas wasn't painful too, so she'd thrown it at his face and taken off. And it had worked even better than she'd hoped.

The sound of footsteps other than her own notifying her that green haired guy was catching up, Ukyo threw a clip of mini spatulas behind her, not bothering to aim. Damn, even blinded he was still fast. She didn't have time for this-!

Her feet skidding around the corner, the young restaurant owner sighed in relief as she spotted the stairs to the first floor. Her pursuer was almost upon her, and she had only been carrying the one flour bomb- but that was alright. She had something even better to use on this guy.

When Sanageyama turned the corner as well, still rubbing his eyes from the highly effective attack/getaway maneuver, Ukyo was waiting mere feet away with her hand raised to head level. But she didn't use it to punch him- instead, she opened it and flung forward what it contained.

"Tempura flash!"

Flakes of tempura mixed with gunpowder hit the Athletic Club Committee Chair directly in the face. He fell backward, hacking and coughing as the powder clouding around his face sparked and crackled, conveniently also forcing him to keep his vaunted eyes tightly shut.

The second he recoiled from her, Ukyo turned and bolted for the stairs, mentally congratulating herself at a plan well executed. This guy wasn't so tough as long as you were sneaky. If he was truly the "strongest" of the woman's four henchmen like he'd boasted earlier, Furinkan probably didn't have to worry about being "conquered" any time soon, whatever that meant.

The okonomiyaki chef allowed herself a small smirk as she ran. Things weren't as bad as she'd thought. She was doing well against this guy (she'd heard his name, but didn't really care about it and had quickly forgotten), so Ryoga would probably win against the giant guy, and the principal might even be out of commission for the day. So aside from Ranma's fight, it seemed everything was going fine.

Yes sir, everything was going just fine, right up until the ceiling caved in.

In an instant, the floor above the route to the stairs suddenly crumpled inward and fell, building material raining down directly on to the hallway beneath. Ukyo screamed and threw herself backwards, plowing in to a surprised Sanageyama (who was still stumbling around blindly) and knocking them both to the ground. This managed to keep both of them out of the range of the suddenly collapsing ceiling, which extended all the way down the hall, almost corner to corner, before stopping.

The sky stopped falling after a few seconds, and for a brief time, the only thing that moved was the massive amount of disturbed, swirling particles of dust. Then Sanageyama sat up, rubbing his eyes some more as the clinging powder that had been thrown at them began to dissipate. Ukyo coughed a few times as his shifting lifted her up as well, before attempting to place her hands on the floor and recover.

Both of them then froze in place as noise began to issue from the rubble, and as the dust began to settle, they realized just what had caused the upper hallway to submit to gravity.

Ukyo stared at a very bruised looking Akane, who was laughing weakly/semi-madly in triumph as she slowly stood up, holding a rather scared-stiff looking boy under her left armpit like a giant cardboard cutout.

Sanageyama stared at a very disheveled looking Inumuta, who was groaning in semi-pain as he pushed a rather large chunk of ceiling off of himself while muttering something indistinguishable under his breath.

"Told you... I would hit you... HAH..." Akane panted out with a mad looking grin.

Inumuta proceeded to haltingly stand up himself, shaking off plaster dust combined with floor tile fragments. His mouth held an expression of complete disbelief.

"...How... how could I have been...?"

The Tendo girl continued to bask in her moment of glory right up until she noticed the two person audience they now had. Once she did, her laughter abruptly stopped as she turned to gawk at the pair.

"Wha... Ukyo? What are you DOING?"

Inumuta turned as well, squinting at his fellow council member from beneath his visor.

"I'm sorry, were we _interrupting_ something?" the blue haired boy flatly remarked.

Ukyo and Sanageyama looked at each other and blinked in tandem as it slowly began to sink in that they were lying together on the floor, their heads mere inches apart, with Ukyo's back pressed flush against Sanageyama's chest.

Before either could truly react to this revelation, a small horde of students came rushing down the corridor, only to be stopped in their tracks by the scene right in front of them.

For a split second, the combatants and gambling group simply stared at each other.

And then...

"Wait, so UKYO is the one getting a new fiance? Hold on, I want my money back, how were any of us supposed to guess _that_?!"

* * *

The side of a fist hit the the bottom of the great depression in the ground, its owner angry at both his opponent and himself.

He had seen that strike coming. He had even readjusted his balance mid air and grabbed for the sheath, sure that he could use it to get away without being hit. And yet, Ranma had not been prepared for the blast of chi that had come ripping out of its tip an instant later. So now, he was lying at the bottom of a blast crater, with both his stomach and chest hurting as much they ever had, and still no clue as to why he had even been forced in to this fight to begin with.

Ranma stood with a pained grunt and looked up at the edge of the large half-spherical hole in to which he'd tumbled.

Well, time to get back to it.

He made his way over to the lip of the crater and swung his arms over the side, allowing him to push off the ground with enough force to lift him completely out of the earthy basin and land himself back in a standing position. The martial artist tried to ignore the protest his lower and upper body gave at doing so.

The woman was waiting for him.

"I take it you still ain't plannin' on surrenderin'?"

In answer, the woman simply smiled and made a "_come on_" gesture with her free hand.

Ranma smirked- he knew he was distinctly lacking any sort of plan to put his opponent down other than "hit and don't get hit back", but he'd always been better at improvising anyways.

"Yeah, didn't think so."

Grinning, he dove right in.

A _shing_ of steel later, the martial artist couldn't help but notice his opponent's style had changed. Hell, anyone would have. Whereas before she was mainly blockading his strikes with her sword case and waiting for attacks of opportunity, now the sword was out of its sheath, and the woman wielded the two pieces in tandem. Ranma would have thought that impressive- dual wielding wasn't exactly a common skill- were it not so potentially lethal in what had seemed up until now to be a simple battle for dominance.

...although, actually, it still wasn't a terribly "dangerous" fight. She wasn't actually attacking with the sword, only using it as a shield, forcing Ranma to pull back attack after attack to keep from slicing a finger, hand, or foot off. She maneuvered the weapon in ways that he could easily evade ever striking it, but only if he either cut off his own attack entirely, or diverted it to a different angle that she could either dodge or counter. She seemed slower from the working over he'd given her with the Chestnut Fist earlier, but her rather dirty tactic was enough to keep the fight from going anywhere quickly.

Ranma grimaced- great. She was using live steel against him, but since she wasn't doing so in a way that aimed to seriously _harm_, he couldn't really get legitimately angry at her the way he had with opponents like Taro and Ryu. She was willing to do anything that would let her win, but only up to a certain point- sort of like his own credo, really.

It was still ridiculously unfair though, which the martial artist could easily find it in himself to be rather miffed about.

"Would ya put the sword down already?!" Ranma yelled with obvious annoyance as he was forced to divert another strike to keep from splitting his palm open.

"NO! In times of strife, it is those who rise above the common ideals of what is fair and acceptable that achieve success in the end! If it is for the sake of triumphing in this conflict, Kiryuin Satsuki will do whatever it takes!" the woman shouted back as Ranma's old enemy, the sheath from hell, came rocketing towards his chin.

The martial artist couldn't help but puzzle over that statement as he smashed the sword case off course with his other hand. Geez, he'd been even more right than he'd known. To hear his own school's motto practically parroted back at him; that was kind of weird coming from someone he had only known for the duration of this fight.

...oh, and THAT was her name? He'd totally missed that earlier.

Ranma pulled back after a failed feint attack- which his opponent was annoyingly good at noticing- and used the small break in the action to try and figure out a way around the sword problem. The girl took advantage of the change in distance to quickly swing her sword at the ground near her feet, the pressure wave created by doing so sending a rain of dirt chunks flying six feet in to the air. The martial artist didn't stay confused about what she was doing for long, as the sheath in her other hand was pulled back and swung.

Ranma ducked and weaved as shards of Earth, hardened and tempered from being stamped over by hundreds of students every day for years on end, were belted at him like rapid fire baseballs. Luckily, they were slow enough to dodge, as they weren't being hit with chi-enhanced strength- no wonder, they would probably disintegrate.

"The hell kind of attack was that?" Ranma asked sarcastically as he flipped over the final dirt clod/virtual rock. Seemed more like something HE would try and pull than-

"One that WORKED!" came the reply as a sword-created shockwave, nearly on par with the one that had decimated the front of the school, came flying out of the dust cloud that had naturally formed from beating the tar out of a bunch of dirt. Ranma's eyes widened in realization as he quickly estimated time to impact and went with the first idea that came to mind.

"MOKO TAKABISHA!"

The chi blast was not aimed at the oncoming attack, but directly in to the sky. As per Newton's third law (which only sometimes chose to grace Nerima with its presence), Ranma was propelled backwards in to the Earth as the Kiryuin lady's attack passed harmlessly overhead, thankfully going completely over top of the school this time. He immediately rolled and kicked back to his feet, reassuming his previous position.

"You were saying?"

The woman smiled as her miniature smokescreen dissipated, as if having almost expected such a result. Ranma grinned back- honestly, he could respect an opponent like this. He had no idea why they were fighting, but she certainly was well trained, and seemingly not looking to cause any permanent harm to anyone despite the very sharp blade she held. Thus far, she had really only been actually attempting to hit him with blunt attacks- even the wave from just now probably wouldn't have done more than smash him in to something- and she didn't seem to have a personal vendetta against him or anything, which was a rarity in his fights.

Though, he was still pretty sure he'd heard something about "conquering" in that speech he'd only half-listened too earlier, and the talk of being "crushed beneath their feet" before the fight had even started meant her intentions likely weren't exactly pleasant. Oh well.

The battle at a temporary standstill again, Ranma took the opportunity to consider what to do next. If he wanted to get past the sword, he probably needed to pull out another special technique to surprise her with- but which one? He didn't even have to try first to tell that "Satsuki" had too much self control to be led in to a Hiryu Shoten Ha- even if he managed to get her to follow him in the spiral, she likely wouldn't get angry enough to power it even if he spent the entire time insulting her. The Amaguriken had worked well once, but she would be prepared for that now, and at that sort of speed he might not be able to stop if she mounted any sort of defense with her sword; not to even mention he wasn't exactly feeling up to another full fledged fist barrage when it could all too easily lead to another blast to the stomach/chest. Maybe the U...

...where was that whistling noise coming from?

Before Ranma could so much as look around, he was promptly blindsided by a flying dinner table.

**!-SMAKT-!**

Both he and the piece of furniture went tumbling backwards, but rolled/crashed to a stop before going all that far. Only a few seconds later, the table lay partially wrecked on its side, while Ranma lay with his limbs splayed out upon the ground, his head now facing the sky.

The other head- the one sticking out of the center of the table- moaned.

"Owww..."

Ranma simply stared up at it incredulously until it turned to look at him.

"Er, sorry, I- oh, hey, Ranma! It's you!" Tsubasa remarked as he looked around, seeming confused. "Wait a second, this is Furinkan! You liar! You told me you didn't dress up all that often, but you're going to school like that?!"

Dress up...?

Ranma tilted his head up to stare at his chest and found his view blocked by two rather large (and annoyingly wet) mounds of flesh that hadn't been there a few seconds ago. Slowly, he (now she) turned her head to the side to stare at the shattered remnants of a crystal flower vase, which had apparently upturned its contents- all over her, naturally- upon impact.

Having confirmed what had hit her, the occasional girl lolled her head back in to a neutral position, staring up in to the heavens. It didn't take that long for her to figure out what she wanted to say.

"You have GOT to be kidding. That has got to be the most unlikely way I have ever been splashed, bar NONE. Why do you **do** this?" Ranma groused, aiming her complaints at whatever Kami had been screwing with her life since Jusenkyo, or perhaps just the universe in general.

"Hey, this isn't a plot to seduce Ukyo, is it?! If it is, I'll-"

No, no, enough. She could not deal with stupid accusations today. There were bigger concerns.

"Ranma, YOU-!"

"Just GO, Tsubasa." Ranma muttered, her chi flaring in to the visible spectrum as she stood and turned back to her stone faced opponent.

Tsubasa gulped, not having been privy to what an angry, chi-using martial artist looked like before now. "Uh, yeah, I'll... I'll just go do that..."

The crossdresser popped out of the table- for some reason garbed in a dress so frilly and sweet it may very well have given even Shiratori Asuza a toothache- and scurried off through the front gate, vanishing as if he had never been there.

Barring the wreckage of the table, which remained. But otherwise, gone.

Ranma tilted her head from side to side to crack her neck, reanalyzing the situation. Okay, now that she was no longer flaring with anger over being hit by a falling hardwood dining set, she could think straight- maybe Table-basa's "intervention" had been a good thing. She'd sustained only minor injuries from the collision, and in exchange she'd gotten exactly what she had been hoping to get earlier- she was now in her girl form, if from the least probable source of water imaginable. Her upgraded speed probably wouldn't be something this Satsuki girl was expecting either, which took care of how to catch her off guard easily enough.

But the pigtailed aquatransexual was also feeling the exertion from the fight thus far, and her injuries weren't helping any. Was the speed increase going to be enough to swing this fight definitively in her favor at this point?

She gave the matter all of half a second's thought before shrugging it off. She'd just have to find out.

Dialing back her chi aura so as not to waste energy, the martial artist began walking sedately back towards the girl in the military outfit, who was standing in the same ready position she'd been in when Tsubasa had touched down. Ranma noted that she didn't even look _surprised_ by anything that had just happened. Was this woman made of ICE?

* * *

As her opponent walked back towards her, Satsuki kept her features stilled in the cool, some-might-say haughty expression that she wore so often. Behind that mask, her mind whirled like a panicked tornado as she tried to make some sense of what had just happened.

It wasn't as though she really needed to keep testing Saotome. He had already proven himself to be better than any of her current Elite Four in terms of combat skill, and hadn't backed down in the slightest since they'd started- she hadn't fought anyone this good in... ever, honestly. Whether he qualified for any sort of particular position at her school was besides the point. She had already decided to extend an invitation to him; the details could be worked out later.

But in order to get him to _accept_ that invitation, she needed to win this fight. If what Satsuki had seen earlier was any indication, Saotome wasn't much one for school, but she could likely bait the hook of transferring to Honnouji with the promise of strong opponents, as well as the niceties that being a three star student at her school would afford. Saotome didn't seem too far removed from a more noble version of Sanageyama, so it seemed like that sort of strategy would work.

At the same time, if she lost, there wouldn't be much incentive for him to take her at her word. Coming from a defeated opponent, such a promise would ring hollow. So she would need to prove she was stronger here and now, and leave him with something to reach for until she could explain everything in full.

...Of course, if she was profiling him wrong then this could all be pointless. She had an extremely small frame of reference to work out his personality- namely, the words and actions he'd displayed between now and when they'd arrived- but she'd previously managed to make it work with each of the Elite Four, even when she'd known Inumuta for less than ten seconds before inviting him to her school. With any luck that trend would continue, but still, she couldn't be certain. Even using her sword the way she was could lead to him not respecting her if she was reading his _actual_ scruples concerning "fighting etiquette" incorrectly- so hopefully, she wasn't.

All this led back to her current situation, where it was looking more and more like none of that would even matter until she regained some basic understanding of what the hell was going on.

Was this a trick? Some sort of ruse designed by Saotome to keep opponents off balance? Or was it an actual, physical transformation of some kind, meaning he had _actually_ just changed genders? If so, HOW? And why had being hit by a girl dressed as a _dining table_ of all things triggered it? Where had SHE come from?!

"Hey, you ready ta' finish this?" Satsuki's apparently now female opponent asked as she stopped only a few yards width away.

Satsuki briefly closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and calmed her mind before nodding. While she was utterly mystified by the fact that her opponent was now a girl for some reason, she couldn't afford to be distracted. She needed to keep herself collected if she wanted to win this fight, along with any chance of recruiting Saotome at all.

The two stared each other down, all but _daring_ the other to move.

And then the redhead dashed forward, quick as lightning-

Satsuki's brain reeled in alarm at the sudden change in speed even as she desperately raised Bakuzan to defend, too _slow_-!

"HOTCHA!"

Satsuki felt something impact and stick to her rear, triggering horrible flashbacks of every _other_ touch she'd ever received there. She immediately whirled her head around and drove her sword case at whatever the object was, knee-jerk reaction entirely overriding the fact that she was currently in battle. Said object flew off before the case even made contact, leaping around in a blur before landing in front of her and revealing itself to be... a gnome?

"Now what do we have here?" the two foot tall creature spoke with a joyful cackle. "I think I'd remember a behind as fine as yours! You must be from out of town!"

Satsuki looked down at it with disgust as she quickly reasserted her iron self-control. Was this a _person_?

Seeing the obvious distaste in her expression, the man(?)'s eyes abruptly turned large and teary in an extremely disturbing rendition of the puppy dog pout. "You don't like me...? How _cruel_...!" he whined. "I'm just an old, tired man, in need of rest..."

The crying stopped as the _thing_ leapt at Satsuki without warning, heading directly for her chest. "...and come to think of it, your bosom looks like the perfect spot for a nap!"

Caught completely off guard by the situation she was currently being confronted with, Satsuki began moving a few crucial milliseconds too late.

"Ha**ppoSAI!**"

Thankfully, her opponent took the initiative for her as a fist impacted with the back of the gnome's head in midair, driving him in to the ground. A second later, he sprang back up, looking no worse for wear.

"RANMA-CHAN!" the man yelled excitedly as his eyes met the angry redhead's, his mood switching in an instant. "Ooh, ooh, before I forget! I brought you back a present- behold!"

From within his purple gi, the miniature person pulled out an... extremely sheer set of red lingerie.

Satsuki resisted the urge to rub her eyes to make sure she was seeing the scene before her correctly. Her opponent gaped for a moment before his... her eyes shut tightly, her brow slanting down as far as it would go and a twitching snarl quickly working its way across her face. Her arms stiffened like iron rods by her sides, fists held horizontal and clenched hard enough to almost break skin.

"This is some of the finest underwear I've ever obtained! Said to have been worn by Nobunaga Oichi herself!" the small man announced with glee. "...Won't you model them for your master, Ranma-chan?"

"NO I'M NOT GONNA WEAR THAT YA WRINKLED LECH!" Saotome screamed back, lashing out in an attempt to tear the flimsy garb away from him. The man simply bounced away, not looking the least bit perturbed.

"Aww, but I stole them just for you!" he said with another disturbing, watery eyed lip quiver as he tucked the undergarments back in to his purple gi.

"When the hell did you even get back in to town?!" the redhead questioned, utter fury in her eyes.

"Heh, about four hours ago, give or take! And if you won't model them, then at _least_ give your master a welcome-back hug!"

Satsuki stared as the troll-like midget latched on to Saotome's chest, gripping and fondling it like some sort of semi-human burr, as Saotome herself desperately tried to wrench/beat him off.

"Ah, how I've missed this!"

"GET **OFF** ME OLD FREAK!"

Satsuki's eyebrow began twitching uncontrollably.

_She would not lose her composure here. She would not lose her composure here. She would **NOT** lose her composure here..._

* * *

Gamagori gently shook his unconscious opponent.

"Wake up."

Gamagori heartily shook his unconscious opponent.

"**Wake up**."

Gamagori took his unconscious opponent by the shoulders and shook him up and down like a overly enthused kid trying to discover the contents of a Christmas present.

"**WAAAAAKEEEEE UUUUUP!**"

The younger teen's head lolled backwards, blood still trailing out of his nose.

Frowning, Gamagori set his insensate adversary down against one of the few nearby trees that had NOT been toppled during their fight, before sitting down himself in a semi-lotus position and planting his hands firmly on his knees.

What was he supposed to do now? Should he be waiting for the boy to wake up, or was there something more productive he should be doing? He hadn't gotten to finish the "testing", but as the teen was now out cold, and seemingly for a good while, it didn't seem a conclusion would be reachable any time soon. As taking care of the teen was the only order Gamagori had been given by his lady, he now needed to figure out whether it would be more appropriate to return to her side for further instruction, or to go and be proactive in conquering this school with his fellow council members. Given the energy beam that had shot out of the wall a minute ago, the Disciplinary Committee Chair was certain that, at the very least, Nonon was already inside.

His pondering was cut short as the very same girl came running frantically out of the school building's new deluxe-size entrance, looking _very_ pissed off- yet also somewhat alarmed, something Gamagori had rarely seen her express.

Spotting her fellow council member, the pink haired girl shouted a warning even as she spun around and began running back towards the courtyard.

"Hey, Toad! Watch out, the coin bitch somehow stopped my uniform from working!"

Gamagori turned to look at the gaping hole that now existed in the side of the school just as said "coin bitch" walked out of it. Nonon hightailed it out of the area as the new woman's gaze alighted upon the Disciplinary Committee Chair.

"I don't recognize you. Are you an associate of that girl's?" she asked as she stalked up to him, yen piece held ready between the fingers of her right hand.

Gamagori took a brief glance at his still comatose opponent before standing up and replying. "Yes, I am."

"Ah, so you're another delinquent then."

She moved back, positioning herself with her coin aimed dead center at Gamagori's chest. Hinako had no idea why her attempt at draining the girl from before had worked- she had gained more energy- and yet not worked- the girl hadn't looked drained in the slightest- but if it didn't work on this one, she could just blast him with a Happotsurisengaeshi.

Gamagori held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Please, hold. I have no intent to fight or otherwise harm you."

"Oh? Did you not do this to him?" Hinako asked icily, gesturing at Ryoga.

Gamagori considered his answer. "Partially. We fought, but what knocked him out was a purple haired girl blown out of the building by what I believe was Jakuzure's attack. I certainly was not aiming to make him lose consciousness."

He had kind of needed him awake after all.

Slowly, the hostile expression dropped from the woman's face, though the coin remained held high.

"Are you a teacher at this school?" Gamagori asked. It made no sense, but she was far too old to be a student here...

"Indeed I am. My name is Ninomiya Hinako, English teacher and head disciplinarian of this school."

Oh good, someone who gave their full name right up front... who shared his occupation, even.

"Why was Jakuzure running away from you?"

"Because I intend to punish her for her delinquency. She created an enormous hole on the outside of the school, destroyed the walls of at least two classrooms, and attacked both myself and the girl you saw for no apparent reason. I was already taking care of the purple haired one, but your friend made quite clear her intent to assault the both of us. Her delinquency could not be more obvious, so she will have to be dealt with."

"...I see."

Gamagori nodded, crossing his arms and closing his eyes to think on the matter for a brief time.

Eventually, he came to a decision. He knew what he had to do.

...and so the three star student lowered himself in to as low a standing bow as he could muster, which still ended up being just as tall as the woman he was inclining himself too.

"As the Disciplinary Committee Chair of Honnouji Academy, I formally apologize on my associate's behalf. I've no idea why Jakuzure would think it appropriate to attack a teacher, let alone use that laser of hers while still inside the building. I will do my best to make sure reparations are made."

Hinako hadn't been expecting that, and slowly the arm holding her yen piece drifted back to her side.

"...You're an awfully polite young man. You don't _seem_ like a delinquent... what's your name?" she asked as he straightened back up.

"Gamagori Ira." the teen in question replied, resisting the urge to yell his given designation at maximum volume the way he usually did.

"Hmm. Perhaps you can explain to me why you and that girl are here, evidently assailing other people. What is your purpose in doing so? Do you have a legitimate reason?"

Gamagori squinted at that. This was the third person out of three who apparently just didn't get it. Had ANYONE listened to them when they'd arrived? Or had their intentions somehow not been clear?

...He had to ask. This was becoming downright exasperating.

"We _did_ explain why we are here and what we are doing. Not that long ago in fact, and loud enough for the entire school to hear. If I might ask, is there a particular reason you- or any others, actually- may have missed it?"

The Disciplinary Committee Chair could have sworn he saw a sweatdrop run down the brunette woman's head at that.

"...I'm afraid I was rather scatterbrained today up until a little while ago." she replied after a long pause. "You'll have to forgive me if I didn't hear it. Would you mind explaining it again?"

Gamagori thought the matter over for a moment.

Well, his objective was out cold anyways, so he didn't have much else to do, but he couldn't truly tell her anything. The ruse had to be upheld, and he doubted their stated goal would go over all that well with the woman. Since she clearly had combat ability, as she'd sent Nonon running, by all rights they SHOULD have been fighting right about-

Hmm... although...

The three star brought a hand to his chin. As a teacher/disciplinarian, she would likely respond better to the threat of life fibers if it was simply explained to her outright. Certainly better than she would if he first told her they had come to put this school and everyone in it under their thumb for no reason he could give. And if she HAD somehow stopped Nonon's goku uniform...

"Yes, but I will need to ask for permission to do so first. Come with me." Gamagori pronounced, gesturing for the woman to follow him.

Hinako looked in the direction he intended to go before replying.

"Very well. I would like to speak with the pink haired girl anyways, and I'm sure I saw her run off in that direction..."

The two authoritarians began their short, calm walk back to the courtyard. Just as they had moved past the trees, a white robed figure emerged from the school building, dragging itself out of the laser made breach.

"Wait..." moaned Mousse as he looked around for Shampoo. Where had she gone...?

It didn't really matter. Having used the last of his strength to crawl his way outside, Mousse finally re-collapsed right next to Ryoga's inert but smiling form, joining the Lost Boy and a certain Kuno in a deep, tired slumber.

And lo, the Anti-Ranma Moron Triad was finally reunited.

...if not in the land of the conscious.

* * *

AN: This chapter was not SUPPOSED to be this long, but it just kept getting bigger, so- here. Take it. Not quite satisfied with it, but hopefully it still reads well.

It's... somewhat unclear how understanding Tsubasa is of Ranma's curse. He says Ranma and he have the same "interests", implying he doesn't get it, but it could have been just very odd phrasing or teasing. He SAW Ranma change right in front of him, and he doesn't have the same mental barrier that Kuno does, so... eh? I just wrote it that he calls it "dressing up" one way or the other.

As promised, no ultra length author's note this time! Hope you're enjoying this! (And if not, why are you still here? Go, go, find something you enjoy reading or doing! Life's too short to sit there cry- er, wasting time on something you're slogging through, so go! Have fun! Take the threads of fate, turn them in to your own! Do it! Do it now!)


	6. Hallucinations

"I said **GET OFF**!"

A right hook of practically biblical proportions from Satsuki's opponent finally dislodged the man named Happosai from her person and sent him tumbling through the air- for all of half a second. He quickly regained control and bounced off a tree, right towards Satsuki herself. The pressure wave sent at him was punched through via a small pipe and the sword in his way was slipped by with ease. Suddenly he was on her chest-

-and she was once again back with Ragyo, with that _monster_ that called herself-

Before it could go too far, Satsuki screwed her eyes shut and forced her rising bile back down, trying to ignore the sensations that were triggering the horrible flashbacks. She needed him off, **now**. Simply lashing out wouldn't work; he was too quick and too persistent for that, as proven by Saotome's attempts. But she could still get him off, so long as she could collect herself-

"Ooh, how NICE! Ranma-chan, you might just have some competition!" the thing on her bosom cried ecstatically as he buried his head even deeper in to the valley of her cleavage.

Fear, panic, and not a little bit of rage somehow looped around to an icy calm.

"**HAAAAAAAUUUUUUU!**"

The wave of chi blasted off Satsuki's body stronger than she'd ever managed before, blowing the troll-like man off of her entirely. Unfortunately, it only seemed to catch him off guard for a scant few seconds, as he landed perfectly on his feet some distance away with an expression of amused surprise.

"Hoo hoo! So, the new girl can use chi too! Now _that_ makes things more interesting!"

The Student Council President grit her teeth as she quickly began to backpedal, trying to distance herself as much as possible from the horrific being that was Happosai. She ended up only a few feet from a certain redhead's left, and their heads briefly turned towards each other.

As their eyes met, a silent agreement was exchanged through that single instant of connection.

_Truce until the old lech is gone?_

_...Agreed._

Happosai began looking back and forth between the two girls now standing rather close to the front of Furinkan, unable to decide which one to go after first. The new and the fresh, or the old favorite? Ooh, which should he _choose_?

Satsuki watched her new, far more loathsome opponent move his head back and forth in indecision, and began to raise Bakuzan up in preparation. She was stopped by a shake of her temporary comrade's head.

"_I've got a plan._" the martial artist mouthed. "_Use the sheath, and wait for the right moment._"

Satsuki gave a hard look at her ally of circumstance, before lowering her sword and swapping the case to her dominant hand.

She dearly hoped Saotome knew what he/she was doing.

5...

Happosai finally made up his mind and charged the duo with a gleeful cackle, heading directly for Satsuki again. Who knew how long she'd be in Nerima, after all? He needed to take advantage of this possibly limited time offer while it was still around.

4...

In a flash, Ranma unbuttoned her shirt and ripped the sides away from each other, exposing her chest to the open air. Satsuki didn't happen to particularly care beyond being momentarily confounded, but someone else certainly did.

3...

"Hey Happosai! Remember _theeeeese_?"

2...

The two foot tall blur somehow changed direction mid-leap, in an instant becoming a guided missile locked on to the very enticing and very naked female flesh that was suddenly within his immediate vicinity. THAT changed everything, he couldn't resist-!

1...

Due to the pair's close proximity, the purple projectile pervert entered his opponents' collective range at the same time.

...**Blast off**.

A sheathe of righteous fury and a fist of great displeasure impacted Happosai from below in mid-leap, changing his course by 90 degrees and sending him rocketing in to the stratosphere with the force of a particularly violent volcanic eruption. A cry of "SWEEEEETOOOOO" could be heard as the most perverted person in Nerima mercifully became a mere twinkle in the sky.

"...thank you, Saotome Ranma." Satsuki said, completely sincerely. Regardless of the contents of what had apparently been the "plan", she couldn't fault its effectiveness.

"...don't mention it." the redhead replied as she rebuttoned her shirt.

The pair turned to regard each other again, a blend of mutual respect and quickly regained wariness being shared between them.

This strange little moment lasted exactly that long, as less than a second later, a massive brown form soared over the school's perimeter wall and impacted with the ground, causing the entire school area to shake on its foundations.

Satsuki immediately brought her defenses back up and whirled to face whatever this new threat was, prepared for nearly anything.

This particular entity did not fall under that heading.

"**MWOOOOO!**" the thing bellowed, its cry reverberating throughout its surroundings. Satsuki could do naught but stare as it slowly stood and turned a glower upon both her and Saotome.

"...oh COME ON..."

Satsuki tore her eyes away from the creature to see her (...former?) opponent _glaring right back_ at it, with what appeared to be _annoyance_ written across her face. The redhead then proceeded to cup her hands over her mouth before yelling in the monster's general direction.

"HEY PANTYHOSE, YA' DO REALIZE NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND YA' WHEN YOU'RE LIKE THAT, RIGHT?"

"**MWAAAOOOOOOH!**"

* * *

It may not need saying, but the students on the roof were finding reason to panic right about now.

"I-It's that giant minotaur-cow thing from a while back!"

"Yeah, only now it's even worse! When did it get _tentacles_?!"

"That has GOT to be a curse of some kind, like Saotome's, right?! It's not REALLY a demon, is it?!"

"Eww, a tentacle demon..."

"Oh, who cares what it's got on it?! The school isn't gonna be able to take it if **that** thing hits it!"

"And when DON'T these fights end in massive property damage?!"

Seeing the rising nerves of the student body, one of the teachers thought maybe now was the time to attempt some crowd control.

"Students, do not panic! Please line up in an at least semi-orderly fashion so we can-"

"GET OFF THE ROOF!"

If you'll take a moment to remember the region this was taking place in, you'll likely understand why a call for some semblance of _order_ didn't go over very well.

"Come on, let's get out of here!" one girl shouted.

"Wait! We can't! Some of those Honnouji people are in the school! We could run right in to them!"

"**What?!** When did that happen?!" an angry voice cried out.

"Dude, how did you miss that?"

"Tch, whatever! I'll take my chances! They can't be worse than Mega-Moo over there!" angry voice retorted.

"Yeah, but there's only one entrance to the school..." a distinctly mopey tone chimed in. "Even if we got past the lady in white's people and made it to the ground, the cow thing would still be between us and the only exit..."

"So we'll go through the sports field or something!"

"Everyone calm down!" Daisuke yelled, not particularly liking the distinct feeling of growing hysteria the crowd was now giving off, especially as they were all in a highly enclosed space. "Ranma doesn't seem too worried, so we'll probably be okay, right? Let's not-"

"Look, Daisuke, the guy's fun to watch an' all, but I don't have enough faith in him that I'll stake my life on the outcome of a battle between him and a giant demon cow! We can't just sit here and hope for the best!"

"RIGHT, SO UNLESS SOME OF US HAVE BEEN HIDING GIANT **WINGS** ON OUR BACKS ALL THIS TIME, WE'RE KIND OF **STUCK**!" Hiroshi shouted over the crowd's rising collective volume, loudly enough to create a small pause in speech across the entire roof.

...

"What, nothing?" Hiroshi sweatdropped. "That's supposed to be the dramatic cue for someone to, you know, reveal they actually HAVE wings, and can lift us out of here..."

A couple people faceplanted, while Daisuke sighed and lightly smacked the back of his friend's head. "Hiroshi, we need a REAL plan!"

"Hey, it wasn't a bad idea! I was just trying to make Nerima's screwy sense of irony work for us for a change!"

Before anything more could be said, the door to the fourth floor stairs was thrown open from the inside, allowing a torrent of students to flood through and crowd the rooftop even further. As there wasn't exactly enough remaining real estate up there to comfortably hold that many people, many students found themselves suddenly and unwillingly thrust in to a game of Personal Space Invaders. Which is to say, they were being squashed.

"What are all of YOU doing up here?!" yelled Daisuke, who was now pressed uncomfortably up against the glass barrier.

"Something BIG just crashed further down in the school! We're getting as far away from it as possible!" a voice muffled by virtue of the mouth it came from being mashed in to someone else's shirt called back.

"Hah! Told you heading down was a bad idea!"

"SO IS STAYING UP HERE!"

"What is THAT thing?!"

"Has anyone seen Gosunkugi?"

"Who?"

"WHERE'S MY COOLER?! THAT THING WAS EXPENSIVE!"

...It was around this point that the entire rooftop/former fourth floor population degenerated in to a massive throng of unbridled chaos.

Bet you never could've predicted THAT, huh?

* * *

Believe it or not, the conversation taking place down below was even LESS productive than the one going on above.

"**MWAAAOOO!**" ("SAOTOME, YOU FEMMY LITTLE ASSHOLE!")

"TARO, ALL WE HEAR IS MOOING! GET SOME HOT WATER AND WE'LL TALK!"

"**MWOOOOOHHHHH!**" ("HE WAS **RIGHT HERE**! I HAD THE PERFECT PLAN THIS TIME! AND YOU AND BITCH-BROWS THERE JUST SENT HIM WHO **KNOWS** WHERE!")

"YEAH, MOO TO YOU TOO!"

"**MWOOOOHN!**" ("YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS!")

"FOR THE LAST TIME, I CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOU!"

"**MWWWWWOOOOO!**" ("THAT'S FINE, JUST **DIE**, CROSSDRESSER!")

Ranma dodged the enormous fist that was launched her way and scowled.

"OH, _WHATEVER_! BRING IT, PANTYHOSE FREAK!"

It's worth noting that since Taro couldn't be quite as much of a dick this way- or at least not an _intelligible_ dick- the above conversation actually went better than it would have otherwise. Unfortunately, the scenes immediately following this exchange have been censored due to large quantities of violence both by and against beef products.

And poultry products.

...And seafood products.

...And large hairy men pro- just animals in general, okay?

* * *

Satsuki was at a loss as to how to regain control of the situation. She'd had a handle on it earlier, but ever since Saotome had grown a rather impressive pair of breasts, everything had rapidly spiraled downwards until she was no longer even so much as involved. The battle between the monstrosity and sex-displaced martial artist was taking place entirely independent of her.

How could she reinsert herself in to this? She still needed to defeat Saotome, but the martial artist was clearly otherwise occupied at the moment. Her primary choices at the moment were either a.) attack the monster alongside Saotome- and possibly end up dead, considering how injured she was and the fact that the thing seemed to be out for blood- or b.) attack Saotome alongside the demon thing- and possibly end up killing or getting him killed, again due to the aforementioned creature's plainly evident outrage. That would be something of a problem, given why she had been fighting the martial artist to begin with.

...which left her the option of, what, waiting until they were finished and _hoping_ Saotome came out on top? Not exactly a-

"Satsuki-chan!"

The military girl turned at the call of the only person who ever addressed her that way to see Nonon running towards her from the side of the school. There was a strangely flustered, near panicked look on her face- something Satsuki had rarely ever seen on the small girl before.

...Maybe it was for the best that she had been forgotten for the moment after all.

"Satsuki-chan!" Nonon reiterated breathlessly as she skidded to a halt before her leader and best friend. "There's a woman here who-"

The pink haired girl abruptly cut off as she caught a glimpse of the fight going on nearby (which she'd somehow managed to miss despite crossing the entire length of the courtyard just a moment ago), her eyes bugging out at sight of the most noticeable participant. Seeing Satsuki's own lack of reaction, the tiny conductor calmed- somewhat.

"...Er, okay, I have something important to tell you, but should we be worried about the oversized steak monster over there?" she finally managed to get out.

"...I don't believe at the moment, no." Satsuki responded after a moment of thought. "It seems to be focused upon my previous opponent at current. However, in the event that changes, be ready to activate your uniform at any time."

Nonon's expression morphed back in to a twisted scowl. "I can't! There's a woman here who somehow stopped my uniform from working!"

That caught Satsuki off guard, but she kept her face calm. "You're certain?"

"Yeah..." her subordinate muttered as her anger half collapsed, only a trickle of it still leaking in to her speech. "She's the reason I'm back here at all."

"Do you have any idea how she might have done so?"

"She does some sort of freaky thing with a yen coin, but I don't know exactly what. Whatever it is, it somehow changed my uniform back to normal just after I'd finished blasting some Chinese bimbo-"

"YOU!"

That voice didn't happen to belong to either of the two women speaking, and it was all Nonon could do to leap awkwardly aside as a pastel striped mace smashed the ground she'd just been standing on. Instantly, Satsuki had Bakuzan's case moving for the throat of the purple haired girl responsible, but before it could get there, a wooden staff came down upon the new girl's head, leaving her bent over holding her head in pain.

"Shampoo, what did I tell you just a few minutes ago?" asked a woman at least as wrinkled and small as the pervert man from before. Satsuki didn't react this time; another miniature person was hardly raising the bar by this point after all.

"But Great-Grandmother," the bent over girl, who was seeming likely to be the "Chinese bimbo" Nonon had just spoken of, protested, "Hat Girl-"

"You are exhausted, injured, and this is not the time to be fighting in the first place. So behave."

"Oy, what's with the crone?" Nonon asked irritably as she stood up, having recovered from her awkward dodge.

The second staff smack within the span of the last ten seconds came down on Nonon's head, sending her reeling backwards with a slightly crushed hat.

"Hmm, nice of you to come to me, though I can't say you're what I expected..." the woman remarked as if nothing had just happened while jumping atop the length of gnarled wood she carried. "Given what I was seeing, I'd thought you'd be something rather less human looking."

Nonon screeched with indignation as she regained her bearings, gripping her baton like a rapier and preparing to lunge.

"WHY YOU DESSICATED OLD BAG OF-!"

"Jakuzure, restrain yourself!" Satsuki commanded.

"Wha? But Satsuki-cha-"

"She stopped your attacker, and her own attack was not meant to injure, so we can assume she is not an enemy at present. We cannot afford to make her one given the current... problems we are experiencing." she continued, silencing Nonon's protests.

This was not in fact Satsuki's full reasoning, but as Nonon had not seen what had happened a few minutes ago, she would not truly understand Satsuki's primary concerns. If this woman was as strong as the old man had been- which her similarly miniscule appearance, blase attitude concerning what was currently going on, and casual balancing act stop a four foot staff would seem to imply- it would be best to not anger her, much less engage her.

Not that what she'd just told Nonon had no merit at all. This woman was an unknown, in a situation already filled with unknowns. Who even knew what side she was on, if any? Satsuki could only deal with so many outlying factors at one time, and she hadn't even taken care of the bull/yak/whatever monster yet. Now was not the time to make problems, no matter their possible severity.

The second apparent member of the evidently hidden Oriental gnome race (which still seemed less absurd than the extra large variety meat-sampler platter mooing in rage off to the side) cleared her throat and began to speak.

"Apologies, my great-granddaughter can get ahead of herself sometimes. Since it seems you've finally gotten a free moment to speak, may I presume you are the primary cause of this latest little spectacle?" the shriveled woman asked in an aged, somewhat dry tone.

"...Who might you be to ask that?" Satsuki replied guardedly, narrowing her eyes.

The woman cackled at the teenage dictator's question. "I think I shall take that as a yes. But I suppose introductions do appear to be in order- I am Cologne, elder of the Joketsuzoku Amazon Tribe of Southern China. This," she gestured to the girl with the brightly colored maces, currently standing and glaring impotently at Nonon from the small woman's side, "is my great-granddaughter, Shampoo. And you two would be...?"

Satsuki hesitated to respond, which caused Cologne to raise an eyebrow and smile good naturedly- which was kind of creepy looking, honestly. "There's no need for you to hold back information so basic as your name, child. Rest assured, I have no intention of interfering with whatever it is you're doing here- so long as you don't play too roughly, that is."

Weighing her options, the militaristic girl decided to comply for the moment. There was no reason to hide information she'd freely announced to everyone in the nearby vicinity not that long ago after all.

"I am Kiryuin Satsuki, Student Council President of Honnouji Academy." she acquiesced.

"Jakuzure Nonon." the named girl grumpily followed suit.

"I see. I can't say I'm familiar with that school, but a pleasure to meet the both of you. Now, as for my original question..." Cologne trailed off, looking expectantly in Satsuki's direction.

"No, neither of us have anything to do with... that." Satsuki replied, nodding in the ongoing fight's current direction.

Cologne chuckled lightly. "Oh, that wasn't the spectacle I meant, dear girl, impressive though it may be. What I am referring too are the... shall we say, objects of interest I believe you brought along with you."

Objects of interest...?

...she couldn't mean...

"One moment please."

Further conversation was forestalled as the amazon elder pogoed over to Nonon's side, her eyes sweeping over the conductor's small form.

"Ah, you're the one whose other aspect was locked away, aren't you?" Cologne stated more than asked.

Even with Satsuki's order still fresh in her mind, Nonon couldn't help but protest being examined like a particularly cultured petri dish. "Hey, ever heard that it's rude to stare you old hag?!"

"Jakuzure!" Satsuki warned, giving her subordinate a meaningful look.

Luckily for Nonon, Cologne ignored the rude commentary this time, too engrossed in what she was looking at to bother responding. She continued to simply stare for a short while before looking up and frowning.

"Strange... your personal chi flow looks normal, but the flicker of the other is... somehow overlaying your own? Are you housing some sort of summoned spirit or demon? Or have you perhaps fused with some other being whose abilities you can draw upon?"

Satsuki's mind went from simply wary to high alert in a tenth of a second. Nevermind that, assuming this woman wasn't insane or deliberately lying for some reason, spirits and demons were considered a valid possible explanation around here- had she figured out what life fibers were just by GLANCING at them? Sure, she wasn't quite correct, but that clearly hadn't simply been nothing but a random guess!

Nonon's thought process was less alarmed. Or private.

"...huh?" she uttered, not quite making the connection. "Demons and... hey Satsuki-chan, I _really_ don't think we need to worry about the senile old cryptkeeper here, she's just-"

"You no insult Great-Grandmother again!" Shampoo exploded, unable to contain herself. "It not her fault Hat Girl too stupid to understand!"

Nonon cut off and whirled on the purple haired girl, annoyed at being talked too like that. "Stupid?! That's pretty rich coming from an airhead like you! Who beat who in five seconds flat again?!"

"Shampoo think Hat Girl probably need always rely on head beam for fighting. Shampoo think you weak fighter without, yes?" the amazon responded with an overly bubbly voice and a mocking smile.

Nonon snarled. "You're about to find out you Chinese _shrew_!"

"_Jakuzure_."

"_Shampoo_."

Satsuki and Cologne's simple statements of name, each aimed at their respective subordinates, were delivered in identical, slow, even tones. Which was what made it so clear to their intended recipients that this was their _final_ warning.

The wanton combatants flinched, looked at each other, and snapped in to a strange synchronicity as they decided to resolve their issues through different means. It was near telepathic communication as the pair mentally decided what to do- bereft of the option of fighting, they had no choice but to fall back on less than desirable methods...

Constrained as they were, the choice was actually an easy one. Yes, instead of a mere show of strength, they would challenge each other's willpower, concentration, and endurance. This contest was one that had brought the mightiest fighters in history to their knees, one that had existed for countless millennia and would continue to exist for millennia more. A trial as old as humanity itself, that nobody short of a Kami would have absolute assurance of victory in.

Indeed, it is as you are thinking.

The amazon protege and the girl-of-crushed-hat backed away from each other, stopped after about five feet, and continued to look darkly at each other, neither of them saying a word.

The staring contest had begun.

(...okay, _glaring_ contest. Same difference.)

After observing a few seconds of this, Cologne rolled her sizable eyes and gave a small hop, swiveling in midair to turn her staff back around. Seeing Satsuki about to do something more than simply warn off the pink haired girl she commanded, the tricentenarian decided to interrupt.

"Oh, leave them be. I highly doubt they'll do anything more at the moment, and Shampoo could use the test of self-control anyways. Now then, what would you say to an exchange of information?"

That drew Satsuki's attention away from Nonon and Shampoo's quarrel pretty quickly.

"Hmm?"

"A question for a question, answered to the fullest of our ability. Help satisfy an old woman's curiosity- it isn't often I come across something I haven't seen before after all, and I'm certain you've got some things you'd like to ask me as well."

Satsuki's features settled back in to their neutral position- which is to say, a hard frown as unmoving as a glacier, and a look in her eyes that could pierce through steel. So, this woman was a negotiator, looking for information... and the idea wasn't actually a bad one. In fact, it seemed quite fair, given how some answers were exactly what the teenage dictator needed- just not right now. Saotome was her primary concern at the moment, so she couldn't exactly spare the time for this.

Then again, she wasn't exactly sure what to do about him- or her- at the moment anyways. The battle raging in the background didn't look to be ending any time soon. So...

"...I see." Satsuki finally replied. "However, I must reserve the right to refuse to answer certain questions."

"Certainly, child. I cannot deny you that. You should mind, however, that I'm only interested in a couple of things, and that the quality of my own answers will be based upon yours. Choose your words wisely." Cologne replied, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she gave an amused smile. "Shall we begin?"

"Wait. Before I agree to anything of the sort, will Saotome be alright without assistance for the moment?" Satsuki asked, her eyes flickering back towards the ongoing attempt at improvising a new style of martial arts cow wrangling.

"Oh?" Cologne remarked, her eyelids raising in what could have been surprise, amusement, or any number of other emotions. "So you care about what happens to him, do you?"

...

"To the extent that him dying would complicate matters, yes."

The much older woman let out another short bark of laughter. "Well, if Son-In-Law truly appears to need the help, I suppose I'll step in. But I wouldn't count him out just yet. Why don't you hold back for now as well? In my experience he rather dislikes other people interrupting his fights..."

* * *

Meanwhile, back inside Furinkan...

"H-he is not a new fiance! I don't even know this guy!" Ukyo desperately pleaded, already knowing just how the school's rumor mill would spin this.

"Is that so, Ukyo?" drawled Nabiki as she stepped to the forefront of the crowd. "If you want to keep trying to defend that position, you may want to- how should I put it- switch seats."

Noticing she was still in a blinking, green haired boy's lap, Ukyo shoved him away and sprang to her feet with an angry glint in her eye. "I was fighting with him less than a minute ago!"

"Lover's quarrel?" a boy near the back of the pack called out.

Ukyo's left eye twitched. "...None of you will believe me no matter what I say, will you?!"

"Nope."

"Not really."

"Not a chance in hell lover girl."

"Gaaaaaah!" Ukyo shouted in frustration. "You know what, Ranchan still needs my help, and I'm wasting my time talking to all of you!"

Without a moment's hesitation, the teenage chef proceeded to jump out the nearest window, her path clear of glass for reasons already covered.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Akane yelled angrily. Damnit, if Ranma needed help, he was getting help from HER, not Ukyo!

Thus Akane dropped her pasty passenger and followed her rival out the window, leaving a crowd of excited, gossiping students in the wake of the martial artists' departure.

...As well as two forgotten opponents.

* * *

"...where do they think they're going?" Sanageyama asked aloud as he stood up, annoyed at having been completely brushed off.

"Hmm, just a theory, but perhaps we'll find out if we follow them out the window." Inumuta deadpanned, rolling his visor covered eyes. "Come on."

Sanageyama shook his head. "Wait a second, need to fix something first."

"Ah-"

Inumuta stared with a mixture of irritation and disbelief as his colleague stepped over to the hallway's (miraculously undamaged) water fountain and began running the tiny stream over his head. What, was he concerned that he looked _sweaty_?

"...ah, I see. Deliberately wasting time so your new 'fiancee' can get away, are we?" the blue haired boy acerbically remarked, his voice simply _dripping_ with sarcasm.

"Like hell I am!" the swordsman sniped back as he finished what he was doing. "That bitch threw flour and _gunpowder_ in my eyes, and I'd rather not go blind from not doing anything about it! _Excuse me_ for taking a few seconds to make sure all that shit was washed out!"

"Now now." Inumuta jeered as he held up a finger, mockingly waving it back and forth. "Is that any way to talk about your fiancee, oh 'All Seeing Blade'? Or are you just bitter that your future wife can beat you so easily?"

Sanageyama snarled. "Oy, look who's talking Inviso-bastard! I don't see you running after them- too shocked you actually got injured? And what is all this 'fiancee' crap about anyways?!"

"I was waiting for _you_, and it was a-"

Inumuta stopped mid-sentence, stilling as he remembered what else had been in the hallway previously inhabiting the third floor.

"AH! MY LAPTOP!"

Sanageyama sighed and rolled his eyes as his compatriot leapt back up through the destroyed ceiling. The conversation apparently over, the horde of students that had continued to stay and watch was abruptly kicked back in to gear by a certain girl with a pageboy style haircut, and began rushing over the fallen rubble in the direction of the ground floor.

The kendo captain, for his part, simply stood still and waited. He ignored the bypassing students as they swarmed around him towards the stairs. He didn't so much as acknowledge he heard the passing questions they threw out asking how long he and spatula girl had known they were each other's one true love. He began tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for Inumuta to grab HIS one true love. Sanageyama swore, given a choice between that computer or his left _nut_, Inumuta would probably-

There was a sudden pull at the back of his scalp.

"What the- ow!"

The Athletic Committee Chair spun around to find the guy that the girl who'd fallen through the ceiling had been carrying, who looked like he would fit in better at a morgue- in a body locker- than at a school. He was the only other person left in the hall, the other students having finished fleeing downstairs.

Pinched between his fingertips was a single strand of short green hair.

* * *

A huge, heaving sigh of relief escaped Inumuta's lungs as he located his computer in the still intact corner of the hall- mere feet away from where the ceiling had stopped falling through. He had gotten _extremely_ lucky.

"N-now I have you!"

"What the hell are you doing?" came Sanageyama's voice from below.

Placing the laptop securely underneath his arm, Inumuta stood back up only to be distracted by something odd. Through the broken hall windows (now when had that happened?), the Information and Strategy Committee Chair could hear some sort of loud... cow? noises mixed in with the sounds of fighting. What on Earth could that be?

"I don't appreciate having my hair ripped out you little bastard."

"Well I- I won't- I won't let you hurt Akane! Now that I h-have your hair, I'll show you what I can really do!"

"...is that a...? Are you serious?"

Inumuta silently cursed. Damn. He couldn't quite see what was going on out there from the angle he was at, and he couldn't get closer with the floor as damaged as it was. Well, he was going outside anyways, he'd know soon enough.

"WITH THIS CURSED DOLL, I WILL DESTROY YOU!"

For the love of- what was Sanageyama doing down there.

Inumuta leapt back down to the rubble filled hallway just in time to see the boy with the candles strapped to his head smash a wooden hammer in to his own thumb.

"**AUUUUUGHHHHH!** OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH-!"

As the pallid boy dropped the straw doll and nail he had been holding and ran around screaming in self-inflicted pain, Sanageyama turned to his fellow council member and shrugged. He seemed just as confused as Inumuta was.

"...We're going now." the former computer hacker announced, his tone brooking no argument.

"Fine with me."

Leaving the resident walking corpse to his own devices, both Honnouji Academy council members dropped to the ground from the second floor window, before quickly turning and sprinting in the direction of the courtyard. If their opponents were going anywhere, it was probably there.

Inumuta turned the corner of the school with Sanageyama at his side and spotted the girls who'd fled almost immediately. They were standing just past the trees that were currently blocking his view of most of the courtyard- which seemed odd. Why were they just waiting there, with their backs to the-

The answer to his unfinished question became apparent as soon as the Elite Two passed the trees, and subsequently got a good look as just what the frozen girls seemed to be staring at.

The first, most obvious anomaly was a pigtailed girl, wearing the same clothing as the pigtailed boy from earlier, leaping around fighting with some sort of huge animal mish mash thing. Her impossible movements indicated she'd perhaps jumped straight out of some over the top Chinese martial arts flick, while the thing she was clashing with in turn looked like it had emerged from some ridiculously campy B scifi monster movie. The second item of interest was Lady Satsuki, standing a good distance away from the battle and seemingly engaged in deep, somewhat heated conversation with a shriveled, monkey-like creature perched upon a giant stick. Right beside them was the third item, that being Nonon and a lavender haired girl holding a pair of giant multicolored maces exchanging joint, prolonged dirty looks. The intensity in their eyes suggested it was entirely possible that they were trying to spontaneously develop laser vision and set the other on fire, or at least somehow physically glare a hole through the other's retinas.

...Oh, and the entire area was filled with craters both small and large, there was a huge amount of shattered glass and a classroom sized chunk of wall littering the ground in front of the school, and a great deal of yelling could be heard issuing from the roof, as if some sort of horribly timed flash mob was going on up there.

Thinking back over all he had seen since arriving, Inumuta came to a very simple, plainly evident conclusion.

This school was _insane_.

* * *

The sounds of intense fighting could be heard from the courtyard as Hinako and her immense escort approached it. Given the nature of Furinkan, this had been expected by the former of that pair.

Just WHO and WHAT was fighting, however, was not.

The scene the two of them were greeted with upon stepping past the trees was much the same as the one described five to six lines ago. Identical, in fact, which is why there is no real need to recount it again down here. Hinako, however, had distinctly unalike priorities compared to Inumuta, and thus noticed things somewhat differently- particularly the several rather concerning factors of this situation.

First, although at least one of the actors of the current fight was certainly surprising, the age shifting teacher was more concerned about the battle's proximity to the school than the actual participants. It was FAR too close to the building's front for comfort, and the school looked to be in much worse shape than it had been only a short while ago. She could easily tell it wouldn't be able to put up with much more abuse.

Second, the mass of students and faculty atop the building, doing their best impression of the insides of a department store on Black Friday, was a rather obvious indicator that people were still on/in it.

Third, the redheaded girl Hinako knew to be Ranma was clearly, unequivocally losing the fight. The chi vampire hadn't seen her greatest problem student get hit besides a few glancing blows, but everything Ranma was giving in return was doing little to nothing against the demonic looking bull creature, and her stiff, mostly linear movements indicated she had likely been injured before the fight had even started. The martial artist's teeth were bared in a pained, frustrated grimace, as if she already knew her fight was near hopeless if it kept going like it was.

Given these facts, Hinako's next course of action was obvious.

"**Happotsurisengaeshi!**"

The ball of condensed chi blasted across the schoolyard and slammed in to the hairy creature's side, knocking it off its feet and sending it tumbling to the ground. Strangely, Hinako noted, she was still in her adult form. It appeared she'd absorbed more energy than she'd previously thought.

"Wha- Teach! Stay out of this! This guy's dangerous!" Ranma yelled as she pinpointed the source of the blast, secretly glad for the respite even as the words left her mouth.

"Be that as it may, Mister Saotome, as a teacher of Furinkan High I cannot simply stand idly by." Hinako replied. "I have a responsibility to protect those here, whether it endangers me to do so or not."

She smiled as she walked closer, a hint of mirth reaching in to her voice. "...besides, I can hardly condone this creature's obvious disregard for proper code of conduct while on school grounds. Delinquency must be punished- you of all people should know that by now, correct?"

"Teach, that ain't-"

Ranma never got a chance to finish that statement, as Taro rose up once more, the fury in his eyes aimed directly at the teacher and promising swift retaliation. Hinako reacted immediately by re-leveling her coin- at this range, with his size, Taro was a target she could not possibly miss.

"Happogojuen-!"

Before she could truly begin her attack, a tentacle whipped out and knocked the yen coin from Hinako's hand. An instant later, a large brown fist moved through the space she had been occupying, only now vacated due to Ranma quickly rushing over, whipping the chi vampire's legs out from beneath her, and carrying her out of harm's way.

The pigtailed martial artist jerkily skidded to a halt near the overhang of the school a second later, still carrying Hinako bridal style in her arms. Any possible embarrassment she may have felt about the situation was far from her mind at the moment.

"Seriously Teach, I can't watch out for ya AND fight him!"

"Mister Saotome, while I appreciate the rescue, we need to move away from the front of the school!" Hinako urged as she quickly withdrew one of her spare coins from a hidden pocket on her dress. "Quickly, let-"

"**MWAAAAAOOOWWWH!**"

Ranma looked up and time seemed to slow down as she witnessed Taro begin to bring his entire brunt to bear on them in a downward aimed, double fisted blow. Feeling as if she was moving through molasses, the pigtailed martial artist prepared to jump away, but with Hinako's weight added to her already slowed movement speed, she knew she wasn't going to make it in time. Even if she threw the teacher to the side and tried to dodge separately, the attack would impact before she could carry out the second part of that plan, and if she took an attack with Taro's entire weight behind it, it wasn't likely she'd be getting back up.

Desperately, the redhead pumped as much of her remaining chi to her legs as she could and prepared to try to dodge anyways. Maybe if she blasted some out of her feet, she could-

The sound of two great impacts, both of flesh meeting flesh, rippled through the area. Ranma looked up to see Jumbo of all people, now even bigger than before, grasping Taro's previously incoming fists in his own enormous palms.

Grateful, but not entirely caring what the reason for their miraculous save was, Ranma cloaked both herself and the teacher she was holding in the Umisenken, deciding that perhaps now was the time for a REAL application of the Saotome Secret Technique...

* * *

Gamagori didn't really have any idea what was going on, but he did know one thing- allowing this school's students and staff members to be killed had NOT been the purpose of this trip. The Student Council may have been here under a pretense of subjugating Furinkan's student body, but despite being treated as a military operation, no one on either side was actually supposed to _die_ in their plan's execution. If this continued, nearly everyone both in and on this school likely would, and this trip would be a failure beyond any acceptable standards.

So here he was, locking hands with a two story tall cow monster and pushing against it with all his might, all to protect people he was supposed to be attacking. How had this happened again?

The Disciplinary Committee Chair mentally shook his head and reprimanded himself. He needed to deal with the problem in front of him right now, everything else could wait. Whatever this thing was, it seemed their respective strengths were roughly equal. Thus they were currently left at a standstill.

Except, Gamagori belatedly noted, the monster still had its tentacles.

As if spurred by his realization, several of the lengthy appendages struck out towards his face. Unable to move as he was, Gamagori's head was snapped backwards upon their impact, unbalancing his stance enough that he was shoved backwards in to the school building. The impact of his currently twenty two foot tall body on its outer frame caused a massive tremor to rip through the structure, in turn causing a profusion of screams to sound from overhead.

Gamagori pulled himself out of the building moments later, hoping that girl and the woman he'd just met had gotten out from beneath him while they'd had the chance. Regardless, he was already committed to his next course of action- this was too serious to take any chances at all. Going all out was his only real option if he wanted to ensure a lack of casualties.

He just hoped that his lady would forgive him for activating it without her permission.

* * *

Taro snorted in annoyance as the humongous man who had barged in on his fight dragged himself off of the school. Saotome had evidently picked up some new friends since they'd last met- how very like the coward to hide behind others. In fact, since he couldn't even see Femboy or the bitch in yellow anymore, it seemed they'd fled inside the building- otherwise either he (or his tail) would have seen them leave. Well, that was just fine with him. If he had to smash the entire structure to pieces to find them, he would. No matter what, Girly Man was going to die today.

...Why no, Taro didn't happen to have severe sociopathic tendencies only exacerbated by his complete lack of anything resembling a family, friend, dog, etcetera, _why_ do you ask? Surely _anyone_ would turn out this way when the sole focus of their attention, the one thing their life had revolved around practically since birth, was _Happosai_, right?

...That's actually a pretty good Freudian Excuse, come to think of it. Let's pretend it isn't though, because seriously, this guy's a total asshat.

Looking at his current opponent again, even through his anger Taro couldn't help but wonder just how a normal person could get this large. Spike dude looked like he'd been eating steroids for breakfast since he'd been in the womb, and was somehow as tall as his _cursed_ form. It was like the human equivalent of King Kong, or something.

The cursed boy moved to reengage the ridiculously muscled man, but before he could, a blinding flash- in both senses of the word, for those of you in the know- swept over the area. And right as it hit its peak-

"THREE STAR GOKU UNIFORM,** SHACKLE REGALIA!**"

The light faded, and Taro paused momentarily to stare at the equally large full body _bondage outfit_ now standing in front of him. He then quickly got over his surprise and slammed it aside with a heavy fisted backhand. Nothing was going to stop him, no matter how out of context it seemed.

...Not that it appeared anyone had informed the now heavily armored Gamagori of such, as he didn't move from the impact of Taro's fist at all, despite lacking any apparent purchase to keep himself anchored to the ground.

There was _some_ reaction however.

"YES! HURT ME! **PUNISH ME!**"

Taro balked at the cloth bound man's roaring, strangely urgent voice, before gladly complying and sending a mass of tentacles outwards for his next assault. This was less than effective, failing to even so much as push the constrictive humanoid shell backwards an inch.

"**MWAOO!**" ("GET OUT OF MY WAY!")

"More... MORE...! **GIVE ME MORE!**" Gamagori began to fervently cry, sounding for all the world like...

Like...

Er...

Like he... uh...

...you know what, just infer.

Too enraged to think about just going around his resilient, but notably _immobile_ opponent and further creeped out by his screams, the great bull unleashed a spray of ink from his fingertips at the figure's face and immediately followed it up with a hammer blow, hoping to at least get the enormous thing that was preventing him from getting to Saotome and his ho to shut up.

"**YES!** OH **YESSSSS**!"

No sell. Also- _ewwwwww.._.

By now, Taro had seen and heard far more than he'd ever wanted or needed to know about Gamagori's all too imaginable personal habits. It was time to end this.

All of his tentacles extended outwards from his back and began to repeatedly flagellate the wrapped man, right before winding around his colossal body to bind him in place even more so than he already was. The Chinese boy's slippery tail struck out, seeking weak points in the armor to bite through, while Taro chambered a massive punch to be unleashed with the maximum force he could produce behind it.

And _yet_, all the while, Gamagori continued to do nothing but scream and moan with delight, as if being whipped, held down, and bitten was all somehow _pleasureable_. Taro didn't want to be anywhere near him for any longer than was necessary, and so threw his fist forward the very moment his wind up was complete, punctuating the attack with a loud "**MWWWOOO!**" ("YOU ARE **DISGUSTING!**")

It was probably meant to be either a finishing move or a one hit knock out blow- but that strike, a punch with the force of a speeding truck behind it delivered straight to the face, instead only succeeded in pushing the person inside the bindings over the edge.

"_**YES! THAT'S IT!**_"

The constrictive cloth bindings instantly unwound themselves, revealing the outfit's _true_ form.

"THREE STAR GOKU UNIFORM_, _**SCOURGE REGALIA****!**"

* * *

Kuno Kodachi was walking- yes, walking, not leaping- towards Furinkan High, having gained the rest of the school day off due to an accident in the St. Hebereke kitchens.

Whether she was technically responsible for the "accident" in question or not was largely irrelevant. All that mattered was that at her side, clutched tightly between her dainty fingers, was a small, unassuming package of sweets- which incidentally were, as per everything she made for people other than herself, "enhanced" by a variety of chemicals.

After all, what better way to spend a day off than to finally ensnare her _darling_ Ranma with some delicious, "specially made" cooking?

'Oh, my dearest Ranma, do not worry, for I shall save you from that Tendo witch! We will be married as soon as it can be arranged!' the gymnast thought to herself dreamily as she approached Furinkan High. Truly, such a small, poor little place did not deserve to host her beloved's presence every day, but he certainly could not attend _her_ place of education. Ah, the folly inherent in an all girls school! The _tragedy_ that she could not be with her gentleman suitor at all hours of the day! Their hearts, bound by the purest of loves to come together as one, could not do so whilst the school year remained in session! So cruel a fate she might just weep, yet so _romantic _she might just swoon!

Thoughts of this manner still swirling in her head, Kodachi jumped over and on to the school's outer wall, only to stop dead as she bore witness to what appeared to be a giant tentacled minotaur demon locked in an epic struggle with a huge, spike covered, ball gagged robot mummy.

...five seconds later, Kodachi jumped back down.

"I could have sworn I was immune to the effects of my own chemicals by now..." the Kuno girl said to no one in particular before giving a small scoff. "Oh well..."

Pulling a black rose from nowhere, she began to speak aloud.

"My _darling_ Ranma, though it pains us both, I'm afraid our love will have to wait to be united until some other day!" the gymnast proclaimed to the air with a dramatic sigh. "But fear not, for I, Kodachi the Black Rose, will return for you as soon as my mind is lucid once more!"

And thus the Lunatic of Saint Hebereke bounded off with a mad, noblewoman's laugh, unaware that such a miracle was unlikely to happen any time soon.

* * *

AN: Semi-long author's note ahead, just because I've got a lot of commentary this time.

Apologies for taking so long on this one, hopefully the wait was worth it and this chapter at least made you giggle a little. Having everyone more-or-less converge meant the viewpoint switched around even more than before (TEN times! TEN!), which was extremely difficult to get feeling correct. Also, the Satsuki-Nonon-Shampoo-Cologne bit was KILLING me to write, primarily because it's relatively low on humor. That scene easily delayed this by about a month before I found a better way to do it... which pretty much changed the entire scene in the process anyways. In fact, I still don't like it (it's too long compared to the other sections), but I figured I'd delayed this for long enough already. Don't be surprised if that part gets changed between the time this chapter and the next goes up, is what I'm saying. But yeah, sorry about that!

Taro the animorph-gone-wrong is a real menace. Ridiculous though his goal may be, he has no qualms about killing people if they happen to be in the way, hence he's not terribly concerned about the school or anyone in its vicinity. Annoyingly foul mouthed too; I tried to keep it as contained as possible, but some of it was unavoidable. Pretty sure he's only been seen very briefly at Furinkan (during his initial appearance in the manga for one of Ranma's helping "plans"), but tell me if I'm wrong so I can fix the references the students make to him here.

Also, Sanageyama is actually kind of hard to write when he isn't fighting. Before losing his eyesight, he's just sort of a loud cocky punk who basically acts as an enforcer to Satsuki. You'd think that would be enough to go off of, but it leaves figuring out how to characterize his interactions with the other Elite Four members somewhat difficult, since he goes through his character development and starts talking like some sort of "wise old master" half the time pretty early in to the show. We don't see much of the four interacting prior to that, so I honestly don't know if I'm doing this right. As a former gang member, I figure it only makes sense for him to have something of a foul mouth as well, especially when angry. He DOES do it a lot in the show proper, or at the very least uses "kisama" when speaking to Ryuko for a while, so hopefully the sudden swearing onslaught didn't feel like it came completely out of nowhere.

On the topic of Elite Four members, Inumuta is kind of a hypocrite. He snipes at Sanageyama for wasting time, and then wastes even more himself by continuing to exchange barbs. With his ally! I'm not even exaggerating for the sake of humor, he'd totally do that.

Anyways, as a final note, this is the beginning of the end here- should only be maybe two or three more chapters after this before Insanity Squared is complete. I'll get started on the sequel after that, though there will likely be a period of intermission so I can work on my other fics and original work. I'll post the first chapter of the sequel at the same time as the final chapter of this though, and will include a link, so no worries! Hope you all enjoy what's left to come!


	7. Thoughts of Conspiracy

Around the back of the school, a trumpet flew though the air, its graceful arc retraced moments later by a pair of violins, several oboes, and a saxophone. After a short pause punctuated by light grunting, these flying instruments were followed out the window they'd been thrown from by the contents of an entire drum set.

Nonon paused in her mad back-and-forth dashing from the band room's storage to its window and looked outside at the now somewhat mangled musical tools lying on the ground below, trying to gauge if she had enough material yet. She certainly felt like she'd been doing this for long enough by now, and the condition the instruments were in didn't particularly matter, but if she didn't have enough material then her tank wouldn't form correctly.

If it wouldn't have probably caused what was left of this school's foundations to crumble, Nonon would have gladly cut the middleman by simply forming her tank in the middle of the room (where the instruments would have naturally been attracted to her newly-restored-to-function outfit, and not been blocked by a wall), and then just blown her way out through the side of the building. But since the only reason she was doing this was to save the miserable masses on top of it, she couldn't very well do that without creating a human avalanche and thereby failing her task, hence she was stuck chucking everything piece by piece out the-

...Er. You may be a bit confused right now. That would be because while this IS indeed happening immediately after the last scene, there were some things going on with everyone else at the same time that weren't covered. If we just continue from here, the following bits probably won't make much sense, so... let's backtrack a bit for the sake of comprehension, okay?

Kinda like English class, but less thoroughly tedious.

* * *

_A few minutes ago, at the tail end of a rather rapid fire conversation..._

"...so that creature- as well as Saotome's sudden gender change- are the result of a... 'magic' curse?"

Cologne nodded at Satsuki's doubtful question, smirking. "I can hear the uncertainty in your voice child, but my people are very well experienced with such matters. You shouldn't be so skeptical- after all, chi, which you use yourself, is thought by most to be mystical in nature as well."

Satsuki couldn't deny that the old woman had a point. Still, to simply expect her to believe in the reality of magic, based solely on today's events...

No, she couldn't do that. While she couldn't rule out the possibility, especially given that she was within the small group of people on the planet that could confirm the existence of aliens, Satsuki didn't feel she was quite ready to believe that just yet. Even as knowledgeable as this old woman seemed to be, she could still be mistaken.

It was at this moment that an enormous ball of condensed chi rocketed in to the combat zone and struck Taro in the back. Nonon, seeing who had fired it in her peripheral vision, whipped her head towards the scene.

"HAH!" Shampoo crowed in delight. "Shampoo win!"

"CRAM IT!" Nonon spat over her shoulder before pointing towards Hinako. "Satsuki-chan, her! She's the one who deactivated my uniform!"

Satsuki's attention had already been drawn back to the fight. At Nonon's words, her eyes locked upon the newcomer.

"The woman in yellow?"

"Yeah, her. Guess that isn't all she can do either, since she just knocked Cowzilla over."

Satsuki nodded, mentally reassessing the situation as the brunette woman who'd just arrived was quickly shuffled to the top of her priorities list. Even more than Saotome, they needed to get her on their side. Someone who could essentially "freeze" life fibers would be an incalculably valuable ally, even more so if she could teach the skill to others. Not to mention her other apparent combat skills-

The ambitious girl's thought process abruptly slammed in to a Boeing 717 heading in the opposite direction as Saotome and the woman were pinned down by the man-in-monster's form, unexpectedly saved by Gamagori, and appeared to vanish in to thin air, all in quick succession. Why was Gamagori- how had they- some sort of cloaking field like Inumuta's-?

Cologne cackled aloud again as she watched the subtle tics that gave away how Satsuki was internally reacting, even as the girl kept her outside as stiff and maintained as ever. To most people, she would simply seem poised, waiting for the right moment to implement her next course of action. But to those observant enough and close enough to read the variations in her chi and body language, it was obvious that Satsuki had absolutely no idea what to think anymore and was struggling to figure out what to do next. Perhaps it was because few visitors to the Nerima Ward actually tended to react even inwardly to what they found (usually because they coincidentally happened to fit in quite well anyways), but the amazon matriarch could not help but find the girl's attempt to keep her outward equanimity hilarious beyond measure.

"Things aren't liable to start settling down any time soon you know." Cologne warned, deciding to take pity on the most interesting person she'd met since her Son-In-Law. "In fact, if you and your company continue to stoke the flames you've lit, I find it likely that the situation will only continue to escalate past the point it already has. Choose your next actions wisely, Miss Kiryuin."

Satsuki didn't acknowledge the statement, but took the words in to account all the same.

It was beginning to become evident that she had come in vastly under-prepared. She had ventured here for the sole purpose of finding and recruiting at least one more high tier ally; someone who would be able to assist her in combating the life fiber threat at the most extreme level currently possible, like those already in her council. When she had discovered "Furinkan High School" and the various rumors surrounding it, she had quickly decided to use it as the potential recruiting ground she saw it as. With the power they already possessed, she had assumed that her council would likely encounter little that could possibly pose more than a minor threat to them as a whole- but that with any luck, they would walk away with whomever _could_ pose that minor threat on their side.

However, Furinkan was currently exceeding those expectations to a degree far greater than she'd thought possible. The resistance that Saotome had put up against her alone would have been impressive_, _but Nonon had been rendered completely ineffective by a different person entirely, and Gamagori was quite possibly coming down next given how his fight was currently going. She had no idea what had happened to Sanageyama or Inumuta, and in this situation she didn't think she could guarantee that they hadn't met someone that had managed to subdue them.

Her unaccounted for council members notwithstanding, it was entirely feasible that she could still "win" in the end, assuming there were no new surprises waiting in the wings. The problem was, there had been far too many of those thus far to be even remotely comfortable in that gamble. A ridiculously skilled martial artist who supposedly changed gender with the application of hot and cold liquids, a rampaging monster straight from the most bizarre of nightmares, meteoric lolita girls double dressed as dinnerware, at least one miniature person somehow even more skilled than the aforementioned aquatranssexual, a woman who apparently was able to revert and prevent goku uniform transformations, and, most importantly, the distinct possibility that "magic" existed- none of these factors had been accounted for. How could they have been? No one could have predicted any of _this_ without prior knowledge.

Satsuki didn't like it at all, but things had become far too chaotic by this point for forging ahead to be smart. New factors were popping in at random, and from what Cologne had told her, that probably wasn't going to stop until events culminated in a finale of thunderous proportions. Saotome and the woman were suddenly gone, Nonon was effectively out of commission while she herself was heavily disabled, and the lightning strike had turned in to a continually intensifying battle of attrition. Kiryuin Satsuki was not usually one to surrender no matter how bad a situation became, but Kiryuin Satsuki was also not stupid, and there was nothing so crucial riding on this that a strategic retreat was out of the question.

"I see." Satsuki said aloud after going through this remarkably-long-winded-for-only-taking-a-couple-of-seconds thought process. "Jakuzure, we're withdrawing."

"Wha- really?!"

"Yes. We risk too much by continuing as things are."

Cologne raised an eyebrow, and spoke again.

"Well then, since I'm quite certain we'll meet again, let us continue this conversation at some later date, Miss Kiryuin."

"Yes, let's. I trust it will continue to be as... enlightening... as it's been thus far."

As Cologne hopped away with Shampoo in tow, Satsuki looked towards Gamagori. He was clearly having difficulties at the moment, but he hadn't activated his uniform yet. Assuming her disciplinary chair realized he had permission, he would likely be able to stall, at the very least, for a little while longer. If the battle had not settled before she found and returned with her other council members, they would have to assist in extracting him from the situation he'd gotten himself in to before they could leave.

Why exactly was he battling that thing anyways? He couldn't possibly know it was supposedly a-

The sounds of the ongoing roof riot finally registered as more than irritating background noise, and Satsuki understood. The school had finally seen reason to panic when the "monster" had attacked, and Gamagori was currently-

Wait...

Yes, that could work... the whole plan had already been shot straight to hell, so it hardly mattered if they deviated from it some more.

Satsuki turned right back around to face the still surprised Nonon just as Gamagori activated his uniform. It was time for a new strategy.

"...Jakuzure, I rescind my last order."

Nonon grinned wickedly, the shock melting from her face in an instant. "Hah! I didn't think you'd give up that easily Satsuki-chan! Needed to get Wrinkled One away first, huh?"

No, actually. But the diminutive girl's undying faith in her leader aside, there really was no time for further discussion, so Satsuki didn't bother correcting her.

"Head back inside- not through that, mind," she clarified, gesturing at Gamagori and Taro's continuing brawl (though it was really more like Taro vs. the immovable punching bag at the moment), "and find the band room. We need your airship."

"Er... my uniform isn't working, remember?" Nonon said with a wince.

Right. But if what Cologne had theorized in their talk was true, then perhaps...

Satsuki placed her hand on her subordinate's shoulder and began to concentrate.

"...Satsuki-chan? What are you...?"

The small girl trailed off mid-sentence as a white glow began to suffuse her outfit. However, before more than a few seconds could pass, it cut off, and Satsuki was left gasping through gritted teeth. Nonon was left merely confused and concerned.

"Satsuki-chan? Are you okay? What was that?"

Damn... she'd never tried to do something like this with her chi before. She had near perfect control of it for battle related uses, but that was just concentrating, funneling, and releasing. Trying to thread it through another entity entirely was like ultrafine needlework in comparison- almost literally, in this case.

"Perhaps you'd like some assistance?" a voice she'd thought to have recently left suddenly asked.

Cologne's aged hand reached over Satsuki's shoulder to place a finger on the star pattern decorating Nonon's collar. The aura appeared once more, but this time seemed to slowly suffuse itself in to the clothing, rather than hovering around it like a particularly glowy extra layer. And when it disappeared...

"Ah- I can feel it! My uniform's working again! How did you-?"

"Oh, 'wrinkled ones' like myself haven't lived this long without picking up a few tricks."

Nonon did not have quite enough grace to flush at that comment, but she did look mildly sheepish at having been overheard.

"Why are you still here, and why would you help us?" Satsuki questioned as she turned and straightened, uncertain as to the elderly woman's motives. Given that her own last words to the woman currently looked like a lie, why would she be assisting them...?

"Hmm, let's just say I had a feeling you might change your mind once you saw me leave. As for why I'm helping you... call it an investment, if you will." Cologne replied, her tone both cryptic and perhaps a bit smug. "I'll reserve the right to call in a small, roughly equivalent favor at some later date, if you don't mind."

So she just wanted to make them owe her something? No, this woman was not the type for something like that, that couldn't be all there was to it-

"Uh, yeah, fine," Nonon picked up, "but how did you-"

"There is no time." Satsuki cut in before Nonon could shoot her mouth off again. "We don't know how long the uniform will retain that energy, so hurry. Once you have your ship, fly to the roof, get everyone off it, and let them loose at the gates."

"Wha- but why would we-"

"**Jakuzure!**"

Nonon said nothing more and rushed off to do as her leader had commanded.

"Well, I think that's all you'll need from me... best of luck, Miss Kiryuin."

Cologne bounded off on her staff once more before Satsuki could ask anything more. Shaking her head, the teenage dictator pushed this newest development to the back of her mind for the moment- she could puzzle over the woman's parting words and actions later. Right now...

Honnouji Academy's ruler in all but name turned back to the battle, noting that Gamagori had transitioned to his uniform's second stage while her attention was elsewhere. Hopefully, neither side would land anything decisive any time soon though. She needed the rest of her council back for this- hopefully they'd already done the smart thing and vacated the school.

Two seconds later, her eyes lit upon four figures, two familiar and two not, spectating from the edge of the courtyard.

Satsuki smiled more widely than she usually allowed herself too. Things were looking up after all...

* * *

_At the same time..._

"Oh great, HE'S back..."

Ukyo blinked. Tearing her eyes away from the spectacle she was witnessing, she managed to make them settle back on Akane's fuming face.

"...wait, you actually know what that thing is?"

"Yeah, that's Pantyhose Taro. He's a jerk, a pervert, and maybe the only person on the planet more egotistical than Ranma!"

"...Panty... hose...?"

Weird name aside, Ukyo wasn't terribly surprised at the first two descriptors- they were the ones Akane used most often after all- but the last one, particularly the "person" bit, caught her attention.

"So... Jusenkyo?"

Akane angrily nodded the affirmative, and that was really all the explanation needed... at least as to the "how". The "why" was still sort of unclear. As was Akane's sudden extreme anger at his presence.

"Wow sugar, what exactly did he do to get on your bad side?" Ukyo asked, her eyebrows raising as Akane's scowl continued to grow darker.

"Well, let's see- first he took me hostage in some stupid plot to make Happosai change his name, then he almost made TWO of Happosai with Spring of Drowned Twins water and apparently said he was going to kill us when Ranma stopped him, then he tried to steal Rogue's back beads because he thought they'd give him more power..."

The short tempered girl was really getting in to it now. She had a lot of grievances with Taro that she'd never really gotten to air when he'd shown up before, and wasn't exactly in the best of moods at the moment.

"He's wrecked our house _multiple_ times! He added those disgusting tentacles to his cursed form on PURPOSE! Whenever he shows up, we have to deal with both him AND Happosai since he's always chasing the old pervert around! He's- he's-!"

Akane's hands curled and uncurled in front of her as she struggled to find the right word.

"A jackass?" Ukyo suggested.

"No, something... something stronger..."

"An asshole?"

"Yeah! That-"

Akane's brow briefly furrowed as she noticed that voice had been distinctly more masculine than Ukyo's, not to mention it had come from the opposite direction. She quickly turned- only to see the green haired guy Ukyo had been cuddling with a little while ago standing next to her. And beside _him_, the boy who'd been kicking her all over the third floor corridor, typing furiously on his laptop and back in his non-stripper looking outfit.

Ukyo was just as surprised as Akane. To her befuddlement, both their opponents seemed to simply be standing and watching the ongoing fight with a great deal of interest. They were making no offensive movements at all.

"When did you two get here?" the okonomiyaki chef asked flatly.

"Just a few seconds before you two started talking." Sanageyama causally answered, not looking away.

...

"...not that I'm complaining, but why are we not fighting again?"

"Well, to be honest, this is kind of distracting." the kendoist replied, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow as he watched some woman in a _really_ short dress step in.

"The data I am gaining from this is likely to be far more valuable than anything I would gain from engaging you any further." Inumuta absently followed up a moment later. Akane's cry of indignance at this remark was ignored completely as he continued to gaze with great intensity at the ever changing brawl, his digits nothing but a blur as they danced across his keyboard.

Akane looked to Sanageyama again.

"Does this guy _ever_ put down his laptop? Besides when he fights, I mean."

"Noooooope. Consider yourself lucky if you saw his hands without it in them."

Ukyo blinked a few times before turning back from what could only technically be called a conversation to the battle, only to notice Taro was now fighting a completely different (and ridiculously massive) person.

"...Wait, where did Ranma go?!"

"Redhead? She and the woman who looked like she was about to bust out of her dress disappeared a second ago; don't think cow thing saw them from its angle. No clue why Gamagori is fighting it now though." Sanageyama responded.

"He's likely trying to keep the school from literally coming down." Inumuta followed up disinterestedly.

"Coming down?! Practically all of the students and teachers are still on the roof!"

"Of course they are. I doubt he'd be bothering if the building had been vacated, but because everyone here apparently has _zero_ sense of self preservation, it has not been. Hence, this is happening."

"We can't just sit here and let the school collapse!" Ukyo practically shouted as she tensed to run out and enter the fray. Before she could, however, Inumuta's hand shot out and snagged the back of her collar.

"Hey!"

The teenage chef swiveled on her heel to tear herself away from the grasp on her shirt and glared back in Inumuta's direction. He returned the gaze with an unconcerned, irritated one of his own, not ceasing his typing for even a second.

"Are you going to try to keep me from going out there?" Ukyo asked as she drew her battle spatula from her back. "I don't know why you'd even care, but I practically had your friend here beat before you fell in on us, so if you think you can stop me..."

"Ya know, she's got a point. Come on, let her go out there, should be fun to watch." Sanageyama cut in as he watched Gamagori get slammed in to the school building.

Inumuta sighed, disregarding his comrade's comment. "As fun as it would be to see you prove my point to an even greater degree than it already has been, I'd advise that you not interfere right now. I'm fairly certain this battle is about to escalate to a level you won't particularly want to be involved in."

"Meaning?"

There was a sudden flash of light from behind her.

"THREE STAR GOKU UNIFORM,** SHACKLE REGALIA!**"

"That."

"What the..."

Gamagori's transformation pulled everyone's attention back to him, and caused Ukyo's jaw to fall open in an expression of total shock.

"What is THAT?!" the chef cried as she stared at Gamagori's newly... clothed (if one can really call it that) form.

"They're magical boys Ukyo." Akane deadpanned. "Apparently."

Ukyo looked like she had about a thousand other questions running through her head now. Then Gamagori started wailing, and those thoughts were driven off course more effectively than if they'd been hit by a bullet train.

It also caused Akane's mouth to drop far enough open that her expression came to perfectly match Ukyo's.

"H-he's-" Akane sputtered, the words not forming coherently in either her mind or her her mouth, despite their usual simplicity.

"You can say it." Sanageyama said offhandedly.

"A- he's a-"

"Go on, just say it, we won't disagree."

"M-mass..."

"You're almost there- say it with me now, a mass-oh..."

"MASSIVE _**PERVERT**__**!**_" Akane finally screamed, the words leaving her lungs with a strength she didn't even know she still had left in her.

"...huh." Sanageyama squinted out of the corner of his eye at Defcon-Akane, rather nonplussed. "Actually, I was thinking 'masochist'."

"She seems to use 'pervert' a lot, actually." Inumuta interjected. "She may have some sort of complex in that regard."

"Okay, well, not that she's really _wrong_, but-

"MMMPH!"

The spontaneously created peanut gallery turned a 180 on its collective heels at the noise from behind, each member prepared for some kind of possible threat, and at least half of them desperate to move their attention on to something, _anything_ other than the ecstatic screaming currently echoing over the schoolyard. Instead of any sort of danger however, the ragtag not-exactly-group suddenly found themselves beholding the sight of not one, but TWO gagged and bound Kunos, wriggling and thrashing around on the ground in a manner reminiscent to that of a pair of particularly agitated caterpillars.

"Oh yeah, I left you and hula head over here earlier didn't I?" Sanageyama remarked, annoyed at having turned around for this. "It'd have been nice if you'd stayed unconscious for a little while longer."

Akane punted the both of them headfirst in to the nearest tree, knocking them back out again.

"...huh. Okay, that works, thanks for that."

"No problem." Akane shrugged, dusting her hands off.

Ukyo turned back around before the others, still half-determined to do SOMETHING despite the situation changing every half a minute, and got to view the same scene a rather manic gymnast was described as having seen last chapter, albeit from a different angle.

"Wait, but wasn't he just... okay, I give up. I have NO idea what's going on anymore."

"You don't need too." said a new voice as its owner strode towards the conversation.

Sanageyama and Inumuta were instantly front and center.

"Lady Satsuki!"

Ukyo's grip on her spatula tightened. That was right, SHE was still around...

The white clad girl stopped, gave the two Nerimans a quick glance over, and then looked back to the people she actually cared about at the moment.

"You are both unharmed?"

"Relatively so, yes." Inumuta replied respectfully.

Sanageyama crossed his arms and snorted.

"If you call having a ceiling dropped on you okay, then yeah, I'm sure you're fine."

"Take a moment to notice that we are both wearing uniforms that make us resistant to most types of damage. Apparently you've forgotten."

"Enough." Satsuki stated forcefully, silencing both of them. "You're obviously both well enough to walk at the very least, so move to the gates. Jakuzure will be dropping off the majority of the students near them quite soon, and I need you two there."

"To do what?"

"Just keep them from getting hurt. Keep them from getting involved at all, actually."

"Okay, what about them?" Sanageyama asked, pointing a thumb at Ukyo and Akane. He and Inumuta had- in a fashion- brought them to the specified area, after all.

Satsuki looked at the two unfamiliar teens again, a little more closely this time. The one looked like he or she- it was hard to say which- was about ready to attack her at any moment, and the other was mumbling something under her breath about being too exhausted to deal with possibly/possibly-not fiancees.

"Do you believe they are skilled enough?"

"Hard to say." Inumuta replied. "Neither of us truly got to finish, though right now I'm leaning towards 'yes, but with several caveats' for the short haired one."

"Oh, and there's a fairly skilled kendoist and his lunatic father knocked out just over there, too."

"What are ANY of you talking about?!" Ukyo broke in. "I don't care if you are magic or something, I'd like some answers already! Why are you attacking our school?!"

"We are discussing whether or not we can tell you at this very moment, assuming you can wait that long." Inumuta shot back.

Satsuki stiffly shook her head. "Actually, none of us can. This building is rapidly becoming unsafe for anyone to be anywhere near it. Whether they are skilled enough or not, grab them and the two you knocked unconscious and wait with them at the gates for now. Try to stay out of any further conflict unless Gamagori's fight gets too close. The normal students are free to leave, so let them."

She paused for a moment, before adding as an afterthought, "...Also, if the woman in the yellow dress approaches, do not fight her unless she actively attacks you. I need to speak with her, so if she attempts to leave, try to keep her from doing so without resorting to violence. Are your orders clear?"

"Understood."

"Got it."

"Then **GO!**"

Before either Akane or Ukyo could protest, Sanageyama had flung each of them over a shoulder and begun running towards the school ground's entrance. Inumuta paused to collect the double-KOed Kunos before doing the same.

And as for Satsuki...

Honnouji Academy's Student Council President simply leaned back against a tree.

He had five minutes to return.

* * *

Okay, backtrack over. We're done zooming around from viewpoint to viewpoint in the past. Back to the much preferable zooming around from viewpoint to viewpoint in the _present_.

* * *

Panic! On The Rooftop was just settling in for an encore when a bright pink light flashed from behind the school. A few seconds later there was the sound of a massive engine, followed by a burst of bass music that shattered the glass barriers on the south side of the roof. Several of the students that were pressed up against them fell off the side, screaming, only to impact the top of something big and metal only halfway down. And so it was with a bunch of screaming boys and girls atop it that a giant pink tank-turned-airship rose up the side of the school, "parking" next to where the walls were a minute ago and opening its side hull. The short human figure in the speaker-laden front was clearly visible, as was the irate look on her face.

"WE'RE SAVED!" cheered the crowd.

"Yeah, you are, now shut up and get in!" Nonon snapped. "Before I decide to reconsider!"

A flash flood of humanity rushing towards the aircraft's side ensued, until it was stopped seconds later by someone's shouted, perfectly legitimate query.

"Wait a sec, isn't she one of Eyebrow Girl's minions?"

"Huh?"

"Ah crap, you're right! Are they gonna hold us hostage?"

"PLEASE hold us hostage!"

Not terribly thrilled about being stuck as a short range taxi service as it was, Nonon was in no mood to deal with this sort of thing.

"Hey everyone, pop quiz!" she called out to the assembled crowd. "Question one! How many missiles do I have on this?"

"Nine?" someone yelled, as if convinced Nonon actually wanted an answer.

"Nope!" the pink haired girl returned "cheerfully". "In order to make room for all of you, I had to leave out most of the weapons! The correct answer is two!"

A giant recorder emerged from the side of the flying tank not facing the roof, flew off, and exploded spectacularly enough on the sports field that the light could be seen even over the vehicle blocking everyone's view.

"Question two! How many missiles will it take to bring down this school?"

"One!" another person called out, halfway convinced this worked like a game show.

"Correct! Gold star! Now, final question! How many idiots does it take to set off my temper?

"Er... thr-"

"Shut **up**!" someone else cut in. "Do you **really** think she wants an answer to that?! To ANY of these?! Learn the definition of rhetorical!"

"So you're NOT all idiots! Good! For those wondering, the answer is: just one more!" Nonon finished, her eyes sweeping over the crowd. "Anyone wanna test that?"

Silence.

"Good! Well then, let's all quickly make our way inside the ship before the driver decides she's getting _tired_ of hovering and figures scraping a few dozen people off the bottom of her ship's hull would be less effort in the long run!"

* * *

Meanwhile, a floor or so down, back on the Taro-Gamagori-tentacle-on-tentacle scene...

...which SURELY could have been described with the use of a less evocative title...

Taro flew in to the air via his pair of absurdly tiny wings and thrashed out with his back tentacles, only for them to be met by longer, thorned ones from his seemingly mummified opposition. With his extra appendages being kept busy, the enormous steer promptly dropped from the sky with his fist outstretched for a meteor punch (which... apparently is an actual thing). Much to his frustration, the attack was knocked away by a shield of some sort that formed on his opponent's hand, knocking Taro backwards to skid across the ground as their respective flagella were forcibly pulled apart. Oddly, said shield appeared to have some sort of humanoid design impressed upon its inner surface, though Taro didn't get more than a glimpse, nor did he particularly care.

The cursed teen was slowly (okay, slow by perhaps, say, an electron particle's standards) but surely growing even more enraged- his opponent had gone from giant man, to giant bondage outfit, to what looked like some sort of reject Halloween costume amalgamation (in giant form, of course). Not only was the whole "enormous tentacled monster" bit HIS thing, but now his previously unmoving opponent was fighting back, and in the meantime, Saotome was getting further and further away!

Spiny lengths streaked towards Taro once more, but this time the resident sociopath decided to take a different approach to fighting back. Carefully watching their courses, the mutant bull snatched a large group of the tentacles out of the air before they could reach him, the skin of his hands mostly protected from their barbs by virtue of their generous covering of course hair. Snorting with satisfaction as he tightened his grip on the struggling, thrashing whips, Taro _heaved_ his arms back and over his head, managing to pull Gamagori in to the air with just enough momentum to begin whipping him around in an overhead circle. Infuriatingly, this did not have the intended effect of ripping off the flexible appendages from the outfit they were attached too, but it did give Taro the opportunity to pull his captive in like a paddle ball and slug him across his face.

The gravity and pull reinforced punch had the satisfying effect of forcing the ball gag out of his masked opponent's mouth, as well as propelling him back in to the air high enough that when Taro heaved back on the whips he'd kept held in his left hand, he got the opportunity to do the same thing again. So he did so.

Needless to say, the "mummy" was quickly getting rather tired (to put it lightly) of being belted across the face, and had regained enough of his bearings by the second punch to do something about it. When Taro (not exactly being a master of variety) inevitably tried for a triple, Gamagori brought out his arm shields once more. An immense CLANG resonated throughout the area as his left shield impacted Taro's fist, and with the yoyo-style momentum gone, Gamagori began to fall back to the ground.

...and as he did so, his OTHER shield came down on the back of Taro's head, causing enough slack in the monster's grip to force him to let go of Gamagori's whips.

As Honnoji's Disciplinary Council Chair stepped away to nurse his throbbing jaw, the great zoological mish-mash serving as his opponent stumbled back in the opposite direction, unknowingly sporting a new vaguely female shaped bruise across the back of his head.

In his somewhat dazed state, Taro failed to notice the enormous pit behind him until his hoof slipped on the rim.

* * *

The moment Taro tripped and fell backwards in to the crater, Nabiki seized her chance.

"NOW!"

Her voice resounded through the first floor hallway, reaching both ends of it and spurring the currently split halves of the gambling group in to action. Students spilled and flopped like clumsy, drunken ants through the classroom windows nearest the corners of the school, as far away from the "brawling zone" near the entrance as they could possibly get. Nabiki herself followed suit a moment later, catching up to the second group just as they passed the crater Taro was currently rising out of.

The two small clusters re-merged in to one near the perimeter wall, in front of the exit. Nabiki, pleased that her escape plan had worked without any casualties, did a quick headcount and nodded with approval... then she recounted, because she'd noticed she had four extra heads.

Those four heads happened to be Inumuta, Sanageyama, Ukyo, and Akane, all of whom were standing almost right up against the wall next to the gates. Akane was in the middle of belatedly chewing out Sanageyama for carrying her over like a giant sack of dirt, Sanageyama was completely ignoring her, Inumuta was staring at the small crowd as if trying to puzzle something out, and Ukyo...

Ukyo was conflicted. On one hand, the majority of the school was still on the roof, so obviously the school needed to be protected from the giant monster... curse victim..._ thing_ that was -sort of- attacking it. The blue haired boy had told them to just wait here and they'd explain everything later, but he was an enemy, so she half wanted to disregard that just on the principle of the matter. On the other hand, that same boy had been right, at least in that this fight was currently at something of a higher level than she could feasibly involve herself and actually make all that much difference. The somewhat disgusting giant "magical man" (she could in no way consider that person to be a _boy_) in the armor with all the whips seemed to have diverted this Taro person's attention well enough already anyways, and considering the respective sizes and powers of the current combatants, she would probably just be more in the way than anything if she tried to butt in. **But**, armored guy was on the side of the people who'd been attacking the school _first_, which she was obviously against, and who knew what they were going to do once this particular battle was over, so...

The okonomiyaki chef continued to internally debate within this self contained, extremely brief POV switch as Nabiki began making her way over to where she'd seen her sister- pointedly ignoring the unconscious Kunos lying on the ground nearby as she did so.

"Hey sis."

Akane stopped fuming in Sanageyama's general direction for the moment and turned towards the voice.

"Nabiki? Wait, did you bring all these people out here?" she blurted out confusedly before striding rather rigidly over to her sister, moving away from the three people she'd arrived with.

"Yep, this is my usual crowd. Things are getting too heated over at the building right now. I needed to get everyone out of the school quickly and simultaneously, I saw an opportunity, I took the opportunity." the mercenary girl stated succinctly. "You look bruised though, did you win against... whoever I take it you were fighting?"

Akane looked at both of her not-exactly captors, still standing near the gates, in turn. "We... sort of tied in the end, I guess? I..."

The dark haired girl paused for a moment before laughing aloud, a tinge of bitterness in her voice. "No, I take that back. I lost that fight, it was only a draw because it got called off. To be fair, he's got magic or something on his side, but... I still lost, badly."

She sighed. "And now, I'm sitting over here _uselessly_ because I don't know what to do to help. Taro's putting the school in danger, and I hate doing nothing about it, but... I don't think I could do anything to stop him."

That hurt the short haired girl to admit, but she'd barely been able to beat him when teamed up with Ranma and going in uninjured, and that had been Taro before he "upgraded" his curse. As injured and sore as she was, she really didn't want to be within tentacle's reach of him right now. Or ever, for that matter.

"Hmm, yeah, I can't say this is looking good right now." Nabiki commented. "Pantyhose isn't going to go down easily, he seems even madder than usual. Any idea where Ranma ran off too?"

"No idea. But hey, _don't worry_," Akane sarcastically added. "I've been assured by THEM," she jinked her thumb over her shoulder at Sanageyama and Inumuta, "that the giant _pervert_ over there has the OTHER giant pervert well in hand anyways."

"Ranma isn't fighting Taro anymore though."

"Not him, HIM."

Akane pointed at the armored behemoth that was currently locked in combat with Taro.

"Oh, right." Nabiki deadpanned, recalling what she'd heard being screamed from outside while preparing everyone to exit.

"I swear, why is it pretty much EVERYONE who shows up in Nerima anymore ends up being a-!"

"Soooo, you haven't been captured or kidnapped again, right?" Nabiki queried, quickly engineering a new topic to talk about, if only to get away from this one.

Akane's mouth opened, then closed.

"I don't... think so?"

She sounded unsure. Nabiki tapped her chin twice and glanced at the two she had thus far been dubbing blue boy and green guy as they appeared to stand guard, watching the fight and Nabiki's assembled masses (herself and Akane included) in equal measure.

Making up her mind, she turned and marched right up to Inumuta with nary a pause in her step.

"Hey, just to confirm, you haven't kidnapped my little sister," Nabiki gestured towards Akane, "and we're not being held hostage inside the school grounds, right? That would be incredibly inconvenient."

Inumuta squinted over his collar at the girl, shaking his head for a moment before responding.

"I'll assume from the fact that this is my second time hearing about it that being kidnapped is _somehow _a reoccurring event in that girl's life. No, we did not kidnap her, we just moved her and the other girl over here, and no, we aren't holding any of you hostage."

This was true. The two girls he and Sanageyama had fought were being "held" in the area for now, but neither of them had been kidnapped, and they certainly weren't being held _hostage_. "Detained", maybe, but only temporarily, and neither of them appeared to be trying to go anywhere right now anyways.

"Also, the fact that you thought to come up and personally ask that of someone you suspected to be a potential kidnapper and/or hostage taker shows a truly remarkable lack of forethought, judgement, and _common sense_ on your part." Inumuta added, rolling his eyes.

Nabiki clicked her tongue and looked back with a lidded gaze. "Now now, no need to be so rude. I just asked to see if I would need to make up odds concerning a fight between you and Ranma in the near future. It's not as if I could do anything if you had kidnapped her, but if she, or any of us are being held captive I'd rather like to know."

The boy scoffed and moved further to the side as if to let her by, which was completely disregarded as Nabiki turned around to walk back to Akane. She was, however, interrupted before she could move more than four steps or so.

"Wait."

The mercenary girl slowed and looked back, raising an eyebrow at the former hacker's exasperated tone.

"You asked me your questions, now if I may ask one that's been bothering me since we arrived- why are you all so **_nonchalant_** about this?"

Inumuta gestured to the rest of the evacuated crowd. Other than a subsection of the group that had clustered around the two conked out Kunos (the members of which were passing a black permanent marker around amongst themselves), the assembled students had largely gone back to standing around cheering on whichever fighter they were rooting for, despite the fact that none of them had gotten to place any bets (any official ones, at least) on either of them. Some of them were even spreading out to the sides or shoving their way to the front to get a better look.

"You do realize the danger you're in, correct? So why are all of you neither fighting nor fleeing, but _watching_? As I said, you are _free_ to leave any time you'd like."

Nabiki smirked, tilting her head at an angle and crossing her arms. "Hmm... I suppose I'm feeling rather generous, and since you answered my questions- with such sheer _tact_, I might add- I'll waive my standard fee this time. Let me be the first to say 'Welcome to Nerima'- scenes like this aren't exactly unusual here, so no one is particularly scared of them, and for grander, more unique events like this, the spectacle is often too good to pass on seeing. So your answer is, no one is leaving because no one really wants to miss this- especially this particular crowd, since they've all got money riding on various potential outcomes of this event as a whole. After all, if they don't happen to be here when winnings are being rewarded..."

Nabiki intended to trail off meaningfully at that point, letting the obvious implication be just that. In actuality, she trailed off because the loud, dull roar of an engine had sounded directly overhead, and for a moment she thought that a plane was touching down nearby. She discovered she was just less than half right seconds later, as a giant pink airship with a girl stuck in its front descended from the sky and hovered about two feet off the ground- right beside where everyone was spectating.

As the gathered crowd collectively tried to process this, the bizarrely colored war vehicle abruptly grew tank treads and fell the remaining height to the ground, landing with a massive **THWOOMP**. Its sides opened, and a large mass of teenagers (along with a couple teachers) swarmed out, only to immediately merge with the similar, though far smaller mass of humanity already there.

"Oy Jakuzure! Any idea what exactly we're DOING?" Nabiki heard the voice of Green Guy yell from behind her. "This doesn't seem all that helpful given what we came here for!"

"Don't ask me!" the girl grumpily shot back. "Ask Satsuki-chan, I don't get it either! I gotta go get the next batch!"

The tank changed back in to its airworthy form in an instant and took back off for the roof of the school, leaving behind a much enlarged and semi-frenzied mob of students, a confused couple of super powered council members, and a Nabiki whose curiosity was currently being piqued.

I don't need to tell you which of those is most dangerous, right?

* * *

_In the trees off to the left, at around the same time that last scene started..._

Ranma, having long since let go of the Umisenken, had been quickly attempting to heal and reinforce the more damaged parts of her body with chi for the last few minutes. It was only a temporary, not even very well working fix, but it was the best field medic job she could feasibly do at the moment. Given that there was no available hot water and that Taro was in a complete and utter rage, beating him would be nearly impossible if her limbs refused to even move as far as she needed them too. So, as time consuming as it was, she was going to use Jumbo's distraction for as much time as she could squeeze out of it and heal herself while she had the chance.

"Mr. Saotome, we really must hurry." Hinako urged as she watched two small groups evacuate the school and circle around the battleground. "Students are leaving the building in a panic, and it will soon be impossible to protect everyone if they spread throughout the area."

Ranma opened her eyes and grimaced as she followed Hinako's line of sight. This would have been easier if everyone had just stayed put. "Yeah, I see 'em. Think this is as good as I'm gonna get for now anyways. Okay, Teach, you guard everyone that just left the school. I'll take care of the Pantyhose Freak."

"Given how that was going previously Mr. Saotome, I must object to this plan." Hinako stated authoritatively. "Those who just left are at least in no imminent danger, unlike both those still in the school and _you _if you try fighting that thing as you currently are."

"Yeah, no offense Teach, but Taro can disarm you really easily even from a distance, has two different sets of eyes to spot you with, and he's already caught on to what you can do. You'd be way better off stayin' in front of the people who just left the school and just draining him if he gets too close, cause the only way you're gonna be able to hit him is if he's the one approachin'. Plus, I still don't know what the deal with the guys in the white uniforms is, but I can see two more of 'em over there right now. They probably ain't attacking cause Akane and Ukyo are there too, but I got no idea how strong they are so it could be they're just waitin' for the right moment."

Hinako thought back to the last 20 minutes or so for a moment before responding. "Their motives I'm still not quite sure of, but I drained one earlier, and although she was still standing she seemed incapable of further combat. I-"

"That's perfect then, you go over there and drain them if they try anything funny, and I'll deal with cow boy."

"Mr. Saotome, we cannot-"

"Sorry Teach, no time left to talk!" Ranma called over her shoulder as she charged along the treeline in a dead sprint, seemingly disappearing once more as she ran.

Hinako crossed her arms and humphed childishly at the now-empty space. Not even letting his teacher talk. Such a delinquent...

* * *

The miniature kaiju battle Gamagori was stuck participating in was not going particularly well for him. Having an extremely large, fragile, and quite vulnerable target to protect, he was constantly playing defense, which was being relentlessly pummeled at every moment of the fight. Normally this would not be a problem given the man of varying size's fighting style, but this situation wasn't exactly normal- the movie monster that was his opposition could fend off most long range attacks with the limbs on its back, and the whips he did get through were not doing terribly much anyways. Fighting up close didn't bestow much advantage to Gamagori either, as his cloth armor (not made of life fibers, which he was currently regretting) was meant more for resisting cutting attacks than the blunt impacts of the creature's fists. On top of that, his bruises from the prior battle with the angry boy, despite being largely mitigated by the activation of his uniform, were making themselves known in the form of a more and more pronounced full body _ache_ as time went on.

The megalithic cow closed in again, only to be forced back by the majority of Gamagori's whips striking as one large mass. Furious and undeterred, Taro ripped a nearby tree out of the ground and began his reapproach, looking for an opening. Gamagori prepared to defend himself, but the sound of a large engine from directly behind him gave him pause for just a moment, which was all the distraction his opponent needed to close the distance and swing his improvised weapon down like a giant hammer. Gamagori leaned away, just barely managing to block in time with a crossed pair of chakrams he'd hurriedly drawn from his back. Unfortunately, this left the arboreal club hovering at around face height for him, and the Disciplinary Head was unable to avoid it when Taro thrust the tree forward like an uncut battering ram.

Dirt and hard wooden roots slammed in to the giant man's jaw, throwing him backwards to crash on to his back just short of the school entrance. Seeing Nonon's airship fly over for some reason, he let out a sound that was half groan, half growl, and slowly stood back up, sending his thorned tentacles out to stall for a moment.

Sensing victory and intent on pressing his advantage, the bull headed behemoth charged, ignoring the tentacles once again whipping at his body as he prepared to crash in to his opponent like... well, a bull. However, before he could make contact, a pressure wave blasted in from his right and struck him directly between his horns, causing him to plow in to the already much-abused ground as he lost control of his own momentum.

Before Taro could truly recollect himself (or wonder why literally _every solid shot_ in this battle seemed to be focused on the other's _head_), the very woman he'd been trying so hard to get too strolled forward to stand before him.

Five minutes was up.

* * *

Satsuki looked down at the behemoth she faced as it sneered down its snout at her, clutching its skull in one hand and using the other to push itself back to a standing position.

"Gamagori, I have this handled. Move to protect the crowd. They do not appear to have any intention of leaving, and Inumuta and Sanageyama cannot protect all of them if this thing moves that way."

She wasn't particularly confident of her chances, as she had been counting on Saotome's return to the fight, but she could wait no longer, lest she risk the only plan she had left. Gamagori had injured the supposedly cursed boy quite a bit, which hopefully would turn things enough in her favor that she could pull out a victory here.

Her general almost looked ready to protest, but nodded dutifully and moved around the monster to its back. This elicited several cries of protest from the watching crowd, as his body ended up blocking a great deal of their view.

Taro stood fully back up, not bothering to care why this was occurring, only that it was. His tail now making sure his similarly sized opponent was staying far away, Taro's tentacles writhed in preparation to attack the person he'd _really_ wanted to get at. At the same time, Satsuki began to gather her chi, preparing a full body burst that would hopefully fend off all the tentacles at once, if for but a moment. With the creature off balance, she would strike with Bakuzan, and hopefully end this quickly.

Unfortunately, upon actually seeing his real enemy in front of him again, Taro had come out of his enraged state somewhat, and decided that fighting a girl with a very sharp sword at close range probably wasn't a good idea.

In fact, he thought, now would be the PERFECT time to try out his new move...

Satsuki watched cautiously, preparing herself to move as Taro reared up with all of his slippery limbs outstretched and pointing at her. A second later, just as she expected, they lashed out as one...

...but then, before they could reach her, they curved in on themselves and withdrew, reversing direction to stretch out not towards her, but towards the dropped tree near Taro's hooves. While Satsuki quickly reasserted her control of the chi she'd just been about to release, the tentacles grabbed hold of the large length of recently-living wood and brought it up in to the air- only to lob it in to the air directly above Satsuki a moment later.

The Student Council President immediately reacted by swiping upwards with Bakuzan and cutting the log in two with a pressure wave, but the impact of the falling halves of tree crashing in to the ground still destabilized her footing, which was all Taro had been intending to do to begin with. Satsuki's eyes widened as each of the tentacles began to glow at its end-

...and then Saotome was simply_ there_, falling through the air and thrusting out hands filled with golden light at the monster's face, the beam blasting out of them cutting off whatever attack had been about to occur and forcing the giant thing back a scant few feet- just enough for the falling martial artist to then impact him feet first right between his eyes.

Taro staggered back in pain, shock, and a great deal of annoyance that this "headshot" trend seemed to be continuing as Ranma rebounded off his skull, flipping backwards and away to gain some space.

"Here I was beginning to believe that you had actually run, Saotome." Satsuki said with something akin to relief as the gender cursed boy landed next to her.

"Hey, what kinda guy do ya take me for?" the redhead returned with a cheeky grin.

"One who is not presently in fact male, but that can be discussed later."

The two of them looked up as one at Taro, who, despite being hurt, would have been grinning quite maniacally were it possible for his face to presently do so. Both the people he currently wanted to destroy, similarly injured and standing right in front of him? This was like Christmas to him.

"Hey, uh, I know we just did this, but, allies for now?"

Satsuki nodded.

"Allies."

* * *

AN: Sorry about the wait, college and all that stuff. Also difficulties in writing certain parts, by which I mean EVERY SINGLE SCENE. GOD. Unfortunately, this chapter (which I actually cut off the end of so as to save the climactic team up battle for the final chapter) might not be as strong as I'd like- there's a lot of stuff that I wasn't able to work enough humor in to for my liking, the POV had to switch mid-scene a few times because otherwise the scenes would be ultra, ultra short, and since it was completed in bits and pieces over a much longer period of time than the others... well, I'm not quite as thrilled about it as I was the others. But! Hopefully you enjoyed it anyways.

No, really, people in Ranma 1/2 actually DO get distracted by really stupid things, and thus miss intervening and/or seeing really _crucial_ things. Situations couldn't get nearly so ridiculous even close to as often as they do if things were otherwise.

That Panic! At The Disco joke is going to age well, I can feel it.

You'll notice I skipped over most of Satsuki and Cologne's rapid fire information exchange session- yeah, it really didn't flow well trying to write it in there. As the sequel is going to be somewhat more serious (though still with as much humor as I can possibly pack in), that's when we'll be learning just what was talked about.

Next Chapter is last chapter! Hopefully, that'll get done _slightly_ faster than this one!


	8. Complete and Utter Breakdown

The first second of engagement saw Satsuki moving backwards to avoid the overhead hammer fist that had just cratered the ground. The second... second, Ranma had vaulted on to the fist sitting in that crater and run up the arm to begin barraging the side of Taro's head. By the time the third rolled around, a tentacle had reached out and grabbed the redhead's ankle, proceeding to throw her to the ground before she could get more than a dozen or so punches in.

And to Taro, a dozen was nothing.

"Saotome, I'm going to use my blade." Satsuki spoke as the martial artist landed in a heavy crouch next to her. "Do you have any particular need for this... person... to be able to recover after this?"

Given the severity of the situation, this normally wouldn't even be in question, but given the end goal of this whole endeavor, Satsuki wasn't entirely certain if she could permanently hurt their nominally "human" opponent and not ruin any chance of Saotome joining her. With no idea of the two's history and an incomplete grasp of Saotome's moral code, she had little choice but to ask.

"Ya know, most of the time I'd say no to hurtin' someone that bad, but Taro's bein' an even more unstable idiot than usual, and at this rate he's gonna get people killed! I'd rather not cripple him permanently, but if you think you can put him in the hospital, go right ahead!" Ranma shouted as she dove back in, batting away a flurry of tentacles as she went.

Satsuki nodded. She could work with that.

Waiting until the martial artist had fully drawn the attention of the monster- for she still could not bring herself to think of the thing she faced as an actual _person_ given only what she'd seen thus far- Satsuki darted forward towards the creature's right leg, preparing to sever its Achilles tendon. A bipedal animal as enormous and top heavy as this wouldn't be able to so much as _stand_ with one of those sliced open, let alone fight.

Briefly noting Nonon's airship passing overhead again, Satsuki slid around to the back of the leg and brought her sword to bear- only for the limb to deliberately and unexpectedly move out of the way, Taro having seen the attack coming due to the watching eye of the eel that served as his tail. Before Satsuki could truly process this, the slippery appendage lashed out to bite her.

With a quick reversal of her initial movement, she moved to sever it through the middle, but the tail withdrew as fast as it had struck, while the behemoth it was attached to turned around towards her again. Mentally cursing, Satsuki moved backwards as Ranma deftly redirected Taro's attention once more, beginning an elaborate dance between tentacle, fist, and the occasional ink shot.

The black haired woman's gaze hardened. She hadn't realized the tail itself could actually move or attack, not to mention transmit visual information back to the brain. Satsuki almost had to praise such an ability; being able to constantly take in and integrate information from two completely opposite visual fields almost certainly had to be a learned skill, assuming that was truly a human being in that body.

Regardless, it wouldn't be too difficult to deal with the extremity itself. The problem would be getting its owner to not focus on her with either set of eyes long enough for her to get close up and take care of the second pair. Complicating this was the fact that the monster and its tail would be warier now after her first attempted assault, and she didn't have a way to easily disorient or blind either of them.

...or... wait...

Satsuki could almost have laughed at the thought of what she was about to do. Finalizing her course of action almost immediately, the swordswoman sprinted forward, directly towards her conveniently positioned opponent's back. As expected, the serpent-like fish that worked as a built in watchdog immediately sprang upwards, rearing back to strike the moment Satsuki got within range.

Instead of choosing to actually close that distance, Satsuki skidded to a halt a few feet away, took up an imposing stance, and _glared_.

A massive burst of brilliant rainbow light blasted out from a point directly behind her, neatly blinding anything that happened to be looking in her direction- including Taro's tail, Gamagori... and everyone in the crowd on the other end of the courtyard whose view hadn't been blocked by something. (A great deal of the mob's spectators found themselves regretting their collective decision to push all the way to the front of the throng.)

The light disappeared a scant moment later, but it had been enough. With Taro flinching from half his visual input being blinded, and Ranma's own view having been blocked by the other cursed boy's giant silhouette, the redhead took the opportunity to do a leaping flip kick in to the monstrous amalgamation's lower jaw, stunning him further. Behind Taro, Satsuki moved in while redrawing Bakuzan-

And with a simple upwards stroke, the eel's head fell to the ground, neatly decapitated.

Bellowing in pain and rage, Taro spun around to face the girl who'd just destroyed his second set of eyes- for now, at least- and drove his entire right arm at her.

...only to find that his opponent was ready for exactly that.

"SAOTOME, MOVE!"

Ranma quickly obliged and moved away as Satsuki dodged just to the side of the arm, driving Bakuzan forward along it. The combined, opposing forces quickly opened a massive gash along the limb almost all the way to Taro's shoulder, which prompted another thunderous moo. That cry was abruptly cut short as Satsuki swept Bakuzan down vertically from its now raised position, and the resulting shockwave struck Taro lengthwise over his entire body, flinging him backwards- and in to the front of the school, further crushing the front in.

Satsuki took in a hard breath, regretting that she'd just done that. Aside from the further damage she'd just caused (especially when she was fairly certain Nonon wasn't quite finished with her task yet), her arms now throbbed even more painfully than before. A creeping, burning sensation had started moving down them, as if a fire was working its way from her shoulders to her fingers. Saotome had truly meant to take them out of commission earlier, and had very nearly succeeded despite her managing to cut off the attack midway through.

At least it had worked. The amalgamated creature seemed to be down for the count, its eyes shut tightly and its body unmoving. With any luck, this was the end.

...somehow, she highly doubted it.

* * *

Ranma kept her gaze on Taro while slowly creeping back towards Satsuki, almost certain this was a fake out. Situations like this were usually judged via the "Tenderized-Pig-o-meter"- if Ryoga wouldn't be down in the same situation, Taro and anyone tougher probably wouldn't be either. Too bad they didn't have something heavy to drop on cow boy's head, that tended to work on almost anyone.

"_Hey__,_" Ranma whispered towards Satsuki once she was close enough, noting the slight shakiness in the swordswoman's arms. "_Pretty sure he's fakin', don't fall for it._"

Satsuki gave a short nod, and both combatants stilled, waiting for a sign of movement.

...Nothing.

Ten seconds later, Ranma sighed. Apparently she was going to have to force this.

"Yo, Taro! We know you ain't out yet; get up already!" she yelled.

The bovine giant remained still. A bit of plaster fell down from part of the third floor and crumbled on to his nose.

"Seriously, cut it out! You're just wastin' our time right now!"

STILL nothing.

A vein bulged on Ranma's forehead. Really? REALLY?

The martial artist was not the most patient of people at the best of times, and this was hardly one of them.

"OH WOW!" Ranma cried in a terribly overdramatic voice, pretending to drop her guard while throwing her arms up and out towards the sky, turning to face the crowd. "I GUESS WE REALLY **ARE** FINISHED! LOOKS LIKE EVEN **PANTYHOSE** CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH-"

That was all the redhead got out before she cut herself off and lunged to the side, avoiding a large thrown chunk of building that Gamagori knocked out of the way before it could impact the watching students.

"As if that wasn't completely obvious!" Ranma yelled in Taro's general direction as he pulled himself fully out of the school. "What was even the point of that?!"

"Saotome, not the time." Satsuki coolly reminded her.

The comments didn't seem to bother Taro that much anyways, as a bizarrely twisted grin grew over his monstrous face.

"_**BWAAAAAOOOOHHHHHH!**_"

A strange echo was audible in Taro's roar as his tentacles began to glow with energy once more, unfurling from his back in an eerily graceful pattern. Although, perhaps at least part of that echo was due to the roar of an engine as it passed overhead, the large shadow it cast making Taro look even more ominous, if for but a moment.

"Uh oh..." Ranma muttered. "I don't know this one, and we can't stop it from here, be ready to-"

"_**MWAOHHHHH!**_"

**TAS-****TAS-****TAS-****TAS-****TAS-****TAS-****TAS-****TAS**

"-MOVE!"

Ranma dodged left while her temporary partner dodged right, away from the central aim of the miniature_ hail_ of chi blasts Taro had just fired forward. In response, the tentacles split their aim, half of them pointing towards Satsuki and the other half at Ranma, each still pumping back and forth like some sort of biological energy-based shotgun- only with a much faster rate of fire.

'What the hell?! That's just not fair!' Ranma mentally protested, running full tilt away from the shots as they flew like missiles through the air. 'Since when can he-'

The tentacles' aim split again, the four aiming at Ranma splitting in to two firing at her, and two firing just in front of her. Ranma screeched to a halt to avoid running right in to the attack and kicked up in to a backflip, twisting before she landed so she could begin running the other direction. The barrage of energy blasts followed close behind.

'This is ridiculou-!'

And the tentacles' aim split _again_, one shot each heading for the space in front of her, the space behind her, and the space right above those areas so the shots couldn't be flipped over.

Ranma panicked for a moment before thinking quickly and... standing still, letting the energy blasts fly harmlessly past her, prompting a cheeky grin from Ranma and a relatively small BWAOH of annoyance from Taro, who finally seemed to run out of steam and snorted heavily as the attack petered off.

Ranma relaxed just for a moment before remembering she had someone else to worry about as well. The redhead hurriedly looked to her right to check where her "partner" had ended up- only to find Satsuki literally right beside her. Meaning that in the end, they had somehow both ended up back in the _exact same spot_ they'd started from. Apparently neither of them had managed to reach the edge of the courtyard in time to get behind something before Taro started varying his attack pattern.

...Really, that was just as well. Between Ryoga, Taro, and Gamagori, any cover the trees would have normally provided was rather thinned by this point.

* * *

Meanwhile, Gamagori breathed a sigh of relief as the world's second most intensive variety of extreme rapid fire projectile deflection (the first place, of course, being the only defense against the now-banned pinnacle style of Martial Arts Ping Pong) finally came to an end.

Blocking all those energy blasts from reaching the students he had been assigned to protect had not been easy, especially since he'd still been seeing spots from the earlier blinding burst of light. The reaction time any normal person would've needed was ridiculous; the only reason _he'd_ been able to handle it was because he currently had a good 20 or so extra "limbs" at his disposal. Even then, if some of the shots hadn't been aimed away from him, Gamagori was fairly certain at least one or two would have gotten through, especially as he couldn't actually USE all his whips at the moment, due to a good deal of them being dedicated to constant self-flagellation so as to allow his uniform to retain Scourge form. Wary of another attack like the last, the Disciplinary Committee Chair set his concentration on the scene in front of him, determined to make sure no distraction kept him from upholding his duty.

The rather unworried chatter of the crowd around him was not helping in this regard.

"Did anyone actually manage to SEE what happened when that Satsuki girl started channeling the sun?" someone loudly asked from his left.

"If they did, I'll be impressed; I STILL can't see. That light only caused temporary blindness earlier, right?"

"Oh _great_, I should have stayed back where I was before, I'm missing it now!"

"Don't worry too much, Tendo usually starts selling copies of the footage after a few days."

"But I'm missing the LIVE show!"

Gamagori felt the crowd jostle him from behind again and grimaced. If _this_ kept up, he was going to have to dedicate some of his whips to serving as impromptu caution tape.

Just past the limits of his vision, a yellow clad form strode back in to the courtyard and began walking around towards the back of the crowd...

* * *

"Seki Haruki?"

"Here!"

"Shiro Chou?"

"Blinded for the moment but also here!"

"Shizuka Ayumu?"

"Still on the roof, but she's fine!"

"Fascinating." Inumuta muttered aloud, staring intently at the students that were now taking up the majority of his view. "They actually came prepared with class attendance sheets to make sure no one was missing. Did they _drill_ for something like this?"

The girl he'd been speaking to having wandered back in to the crowd, Inumuta found himself observing the school's populace simply to pass the time. He wasn't going to interfere with Lady Satsuki's fight unless it truly looked as if her life was in danger, Gamagori was at the opposite end of the crowd serving as an enormous human shield, Jakuzure was still going back and forth to drop off shipments of students, and Sanageyama wasn't exactly the most stimulating conversational partner even at the best of times, so it wasn't as if he had anything better to do.

Besides, the students of this school interested him. It clearly wasn't that they were _all_ simply fearless, or content to fling themselves in to danger like the ones closest to Gamagori- indeed, a good amount of them were hanging back near the wall, perfectly happy staying where they were. It was more that it didn't seem as if any of them were truly AFRAID, nor particularly shaken from the near death experience many of them had just gone through. And as the girl with the pageboy haircut had stated, none of them were so wary or worried of ending up in the line of fire that they felt a need to leave the area, instead seeming to regard the incident they'd just been part of as something of a fluke. In fact, the teachers had apparently anticipated this to the point that if anyone WAS missing, they'd probably chalk it up to the person still being either on or in the school building, rather than them just having hightailed it once they got to the ground like most "normal" people would.

"You there, the boy with blue hair." a sultry sounding voice spoke from nearby.

"Hmm?"

The blue haired boy in question looked in the voice's direction to see a woman wearing a very short yellow dress and an impressively no-nonsense expression striding towards him, one arm held at the ready with a coin held between two splayed fingers.

Ah. This was probably the woman- presumably a teacher- who'd assisted the redhead against the amalgamation monster earlier, whom Lady Satsuki had told them not to engage. It was good to know she was still around, though given how uncommon the idea of making oneself scarce during a dangerous situation seemed to be at this school, Inumuta wasn't all that surprised. It wasn't exactly to his advantage that she seemed to be making her way over to him right now though. He'd have to find some way to stall her until Lady Satsuki finished her battle and gained an opportunity to speak with the woman.

"You're with Mister Gamagori, correct?" the woman asked as she closed in. "You and the green haired one over there," she motioned to Sanageyama, who was casually leaning against the wall, shifting his gaze between the ongoing fight and intermittent glances at Ukyo and Akane to make sure they still weren't doing anything, "-you're his compatriots?"

"An odd way of phrasing it, but technically accurate, yes." Inumuta answered tonelessly.

The woman nodded. "Good. As he appears to be rather occupied at the moment, I suppose I'll ask you instead. I'll keep this simple- what exactly are you doing here?"

"Pondering." Inumuta replied near instantaneously, somehow managing to sound simultaneously sarcastic and honest. "This school and its occupants are quite the puzzle, and I have nothing better to do at the moment than mull them over."

"...I see. However, I meant your group in general, not just you." the teacher returned smoothly.

"Hmm. I can't read minds, but I suppose I could hazard a guess. Judging by his stance and gaze, Sanageyama is currently-"

"I am asking you what your group's plan, your _purpose_ in being here is, _not_ what any of you are literally doing right this second." the woman cut in, her mouth thinning. "You know perfectly well what I meant, and I can't say I'm particularly fond of your _attitude_ young man. I'll give you one last chance- for what purpose did your group come here, to this school, and start attacking those within it?"

Inumuta clicked his tongue in annoyance. Apparently she wasn't willing to be drawn in to a battle of semantics, his preferred out-of-battle stalling tactic. His orders stipulated that he needed to keep this woman around until Lady Satsuki got to speak with her, and not attack unless she did so first. He could probably provoke her in to the latter situation if he kept this up, but he really didn't feel like fighting someone who could shoot giant energy blasts out of a coin- or fighting at all at the moment, honestly- and given his orders, that probably wasn't exactly what Lady Satsuki wanted anyways. At the same time, this woman didn't seem as if she was going to give this up any time soon, and he couldn't just disseminate the REAL reason they were here to her if that wasn't what Lady Satsuki intended to do, let alone do it _here_, in the midst of hundreds of people who definitively were NOT supposed to know. But he had to placate her _somehow_, and just parroting to her what they'd said when they arrived probably wouldn't do it...

Well, he could at least divert her attention while he thought up an answer.

"I'm sorry, who exactly are you again?" Inumuta asked coolly, despite knowing everything he felt he really needed to know about her already. "I don't really see why I should explain anything to you."

"I am Ninomiya Hinako, an English teacher and the head disciplinarian of this school, and you should explain because if you do _not_, you will quite shortly find yourself on the ground, completely immobile for the foreseeable future."

"...ah, yes, I saw what you did to that bull creature." Inumuta replied after a moment's thought. "Very well, I suppose you've left me little other option. However, I'm afraid my information is sadly out of date."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that the 'plan' seems to have been changed without my input. At this point, I'm honestly not certain what it is either." Inumuta half-truthfully espoused, mentally smirking. "That being said, you'll likely get to speak with Lady Satsuki as soon as this is over anyways. She's the one in charge of this operation, so just wait a while; if my hunch is correct she'll be perfectly willing to explain-"

"I'm afraid that's not good enough." Hinako interrupted, cutting him off once again. "Although Mister Gamagori and I were making our way over here for that exact reason not that long ago, the situation appears to be more dire than I'd anticipated, and I can no longer afford to wait for that. So if you don't know what you're doing now, then explain what you and your companions were trying to do up _until_ now, because the school is on the verge of collapse, and I would VERY much like to know if you deliberately caused that, or if it was unintentional. What I've seen so far has been giving me rather mixed messages."

Inumuta grit his teeth and mentally cursed Gamagori for making his job harder, as apparently the woman was literally _expecting _cooperation because of whatever it was he'd said or done. While that perhaps was why she had not yet tried to force his hand despite his obvious dancing around her question, evidently Gamagori hadn't made clear that they wouldn't be explaining everything while they were _still here_. This was especially true now that there were so many people around, not to mention they probably needed to evaluate the woman more before telling her anything particularly important. He resolved to reprimand the Disciplinary Chair later, perhaps in the form of roughly 50000 filter bypassing spam messages sent directly to his email account.

"As I said, the 'plan', as you continue to phrase it, isn't really something I can discuss right now, and it will do you _no good_ to-"

"That's a _lie_." the instructor interjected, her tone dropping in to ice. "I had hoped we could come to some sort of understanding, but I see you are determined to do little more than waste my time." The coin locked between her fingers aimed itself at his face. "But I have no time left to waste. And students, regardless of school, who lie to instructors and deliberately skirt questions are delinquents, after all."

'Damn.' Inumuta thought, fairly certain he couldn't really dodge whatever she was about to do at this range, instead dedicating the moment to racking his mind for something, anything that would stall the woman a little longer.

Luckily for him, an interruption was arriving in the form of a giant descending airship, which began vomiting students out its side before it actually even touched down. The noise quickly drew Hinako and Inumuta's attention, the former immediately spotting the pink haired girl piloting the tank from its bizarrely backlit front.

"Well, seeing as you refuse to talk, there is at least one problem I can take care of first..." Hinako vocalized before stalking towards the vehicle, raising her yen coin to the pilot's face before she even noticed the teacher's arrival.

"Hello again, delinquent girl." Hinako began. "I'd suggest getting out of that vehicle and submitting to your punishment now, but seeing as how you have already run away once and I cannot afford to dawdle, nor for you to create any more holes in the school, I do believe I'll skip that cursory first step."

"Oy, hold on, HOLD ON!" Nonon yelled back indignantly, trying to disguise her flinch at the sight of the small piece of metal that she knew could likely send her sprawling to the ground in a heap of stolen instruments. "Notice what I'm doing?! I'm saving YOUR students, lady! No idea _why_, but I am!"

The name of the attack she'd been about to voice froze on the teacher's lips as she tilted her head to consider the still disembarking passengers.

"Really? You're the one taking the students on the roof and bringing them down here?"

"Yeah, and if you want me to make sure the REST get off it as well, you'll shut up and let me leave!"

Nonon waited impatiently for an answer, just wanting to get this over and done with, while Hinako considered for a few moments before replying.

"Very well. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt on this, as I have little other choice. Save the students first; we can discuss your punishment later."

"Right, sure, whatever. _Bye_."

And the tank was an airship again, taking off towards the school once more. Hinako turned back to Inumuta.

"Hmm. Well, I suppose as long as everyone will soon be safe, and you remain non-hostile, I can indeed wait as you suggested."

"Oh good." Inumuta replied, somewhat dispassionately.

"I do, however, still take issue with-"

A tremor ran through the teacher's body, forcing her to discontinue her sentence. Inumuta watched with confusion as the woman in front of him began to slowly... deflate, for lack of a better term, until he was left staring at...

"Ooh, I thought it was going to last longer this time!" the once again child whined, stomping her foot petulantly.

Inumuta looked down at Hinako.

Hinako looked up at Inumuta.

"Hey, do you think when the lady comes over to talk, she'll buy me some candy first? I'm hungry."

Inumuta paused, appeared to mull the question over, and then slowly bent over, setting his laptop neatly upon the ground.

Hinako began giggling herself silly as the funnily dressed blue haired boy looked up, threw his hands in the air, and began loudly questioning the sky about exactly what point in time he had fallen out of reality.

* * *

A drop of sweat fell from Ukyo's brow as she watched the rejoined battle proceed.

...er, sort of watched it. There were a lot of people in the way, so she wasn't getting much of a view, but one of the fighters (take a guess which) was large enough that his upper body was still clearly visible from pretty much anywhere. It was certainly enough for Ukyo to see it when Taro fired a huge amount of chi projectiles down the field, which only panicked her further.

The increasingly worried chef had been trying to come up with a viable plan on how to helpfully intercede ever since Ranma had rejoined the fight. Sure, this "Taro" might be too much for her to handle- if he was giving Ranchan a hard time, who even knew if she'd be able to do anything to him- but with her fiance having thrown himself right back in to the quite possibly lethal battle again, she knew she couldn't just stand idly by and hope he didn't get killed.

But in a situation as serious as this, she couldn't just rush in blindly either, and she couldn't think of a _single_ viable battle plan! On top of the fight being one of a scale she'd never really participated in before, she was currently being detained by -supposed- magical boys! With any plan having to first factor in getting away from _them_, how was she supposed to-?!

The half-consciously noted nearby sight of her English teacher, seemingly threatening the guy Akane had fallen through the ceiling with (the non-Gosunkugi one), was enough to finally break Ukyo out of the anxiety-induced trance she'd fallen in to for the past two minutes or so as a workable idea _finally _began to coalesce within her mind. Cautiously edging away from the guy with the shinai (who, to note, had been wondering just how long the glazed look in her eyes was going to last), she began to make her way towards the ongoing confrontation.

Ukyo had missed most of it due to various distractions, but she was pretty sure Miss Hinako had been involved in the fighting at some point. As a daily witness to her ideas of discipline, Ukyo could not deny that her English teacher's chi abilities were quite powerful. Plus, she seemed uninjured, and she was already standing up to at least one of the foreign attackers. So, if she could just get the older woman to help her out, then maybe-

The sight of Akane, glimpsed out of the corner of her eye, brought Ukyo to a brief halt. Right, Akane could help too.

'...orrrr maybe not.' Ukyo thought to herself as she approached the slumped girl sitting with her back to the base of a tree. If Akane could still help, it probably wouldn't be to any great extent, because if she'd looked bad before, she looked about ten times worse now that the bruising had started to fully set in. Most of her visible skin currently resembled a peach that had been bouncing around the inside of a truck for the last six or seven hours more than anything else- evidently her earlier fight had not gone very well.

Nevertheless, this was too big for Ukyo to try to deal with on her own, no matter how much she may have wanted to win Ranma's favor. She needed all the help she could get.

"Akane?"

The short haired girl looked up with lidded, resigned-seeming eyes. It was an unnerving look, but Ukyo pressed on.

"If you're not too bruised to get up, then come on, we have to help Ranchan. Miss Hinako can probably help us get away from these guys, she's already-"

"Ukyo, I know you want to, but you really shouldn't bother." Akane said, monotone.

"Huh? Not bother with what?"

"Trying to help Ranma."

Ukyo simply stared for a moment, jaw agape, before furiously responding.

"How can you SAY that Akane?! Are you even seeing what's going on?!"

Ukyo mentally smacked herself half a second after the words left her mouth. Of course Akane hadn't been seeing what was going on, she wasn't even looking!

"Akane, if you just, look UP, you'll see that he needs help! I know you pretend not to care about him most of the time, but NOW is not an ideal moment for that! Ranchan could be KILLED!"

"No, he won't be." Akane replied tiredly, continuing before Ukyo could protest that statement. "I can say it because you don't know Ranma like I do. Though I hate to admit it about the jerk, Ranma doesn't lose- not when it really matters, at least. When things get serious, he _always_ somehow finds a way to win. He doesn't need our help, in fact he probably doesn't even _want_ it. He hates when people 'interfere' with his fights."

"You don't know that! At this rate, Ranchan will-!"

"Ukyo, you weren't there when Ranma fought the Orochi at Ryugenzawa. You weren't there when he fought Herb and destroyed the top of Mount Horaizan. You weren't there when he fought Rouge, or Ryu, or Saffron."

Akane's gaze locked unflinchingly with Ukyo's.

"Taro is weaker than every one of them. Ranma can handle him just fine."

There was a moment of silence.

"...and here I always thought you didn't believe in him." Ukyo sighed, dropping to the ground. "Fine, maybe I haven't been at some of Ranchan's more serious fights, and maybe I_ haven't_ seen everything he can do. Maybe you DO know better whether I should be worried or not. But Akane, this doesn't seem like you. You're always the first to insist you can help."

'_Even those times when you actually know you can't._' the chef mentally tacked on.

"Well I don't exactly feel like rushing head in when I'm in about as great shape as a piece of roadkill!" Akane snapped, before letting loose a sigh. "Let me put it this way. The second I go out there, Ranma will yell at me to get off the field before I get hurt. I'll yell back something about how I can help, and he'll start bickering long distance with me about how I don't know what I'm talking about while dodging attacks. By the time we actually come to any sort of agreement to work together, at least ten minutes will have gone by and at least one of us will be more injured than when we started, since Taro will have at _some_ point taken advantage of our inability to agree on literally anything and hit us while we're distracted. So, this will be over with faster if I just let him have at it. Honestly, I don't even really want to try and once _again_ prove to Ranma that I'm a martial artist too, especially given how I'm feeling right now. I just want to go home, endure the river of tears my dad will cry when he sees me, and try to sleep."

Another moment of silence, this one somehow even more so than the first.

"...I never realized you were quite that self aware." Ukyo finally said, more than a little shocked.

"Call it a recent revelation. Like, today recent. As in a few minutes ago, when I first considered it."

"Thanks for coming to that conclusion by the way."

The two girls briefly stiffened at Sanageyama's voice as he nosed his way in to the chat.

"You make a habit of butting in on private conversations?" Ukyo sniped, her eyes narrowing.

"Private? She was getting pretty loud around the end there." Sanageyama retorted, looming over the pair. "Anyways, just wanted to say I appreciate you not trying to run away right now. Can't have that, so you not even trying to makes things easier."

"Wait, so I _have_ been kidnapped again?" Akane asked with a slight glare, a little of her usual fire seeping back in to her voice.

"Nah, it's a temporary thing. Lady Satsuki may or may not want to talk to you, after she gets around to that we'll let you go."

"...alright, fine. Great, even. Will this Satsuki girl finally give us some answers as to what the PURPOSE of all this is?" Ukyo asked pointedly, unknowingly reiterating her English teacher's sentiments.

"That's LADY Satsuki you disrespectful wretch. And I don't know, it's really not up to me, so maybe. Can't say I'd understand _why_ she'd tell you anything-"

A small spatula streaked out towards his head, which ended up embedded in a shinai.

"Keep talking like _that_ and I'll run out there just to spite you, jackass."

* * *

Roughly 4000 words later, back at the actual FIGHT...

Satsuki had not come out of the chi barrage quite as well as Ranma had. She didn't particularly favor dodging, preferring to weather whatever storm came her way while never ceasing to advance- or better yet, to prevent such a storm from building in the first place. But dodging was still certainly something she was more than skilled at.

It just usually didn't require her to weave between what may as well have been less lethal gunfire. Thus she'd taken a few hits.

"I don't know how he's doing that." the redhead at her side noted as they both caught their breath. "Last I knew, Taro didn't have that sort of chi control in his cursed form. He didn't even have any chi attacks in his _normal_ form. Then again, maybe he did and I just didn't ever see 'em, he spends so much time fightin' like this that it'd be hard to know."

"Regardless, we cannot, **will** not, allow that move to be executed again." Satsuki replied with as much authority as she could muster. "Saotome, does this monster possess any particular weaknesses?"

The martial artist grinned.

"Actually, I've been workin' on somethin' _just_ for him that'll also take care of that new attack a' his, but I need to get around to his back. He's not gonna let me up there anymore if he can help it though- think you can distract him this time?"

Satsuki glanced at the monster that appeared to still be somewhat winded from its last attack, and nodded.

"Alright then, let's go!"

In tandem, the pair broke the standstill and rushed forward, Satsuki trailing at Ranma's heels due to being slightly more injured. In response, Taro lurched forward and sprayed ink from his fingers at the area in front of them in an attempt to make the ground too slippery to move on, but this was easily avoided by the pair simply breaking apart to each side of the newly made puddle. Ranma refrained from attacking, instead subsuming herself once more in the Umisenken and making herself near impossible to notice. However, perfectly aware he was about to be targeted, Taro's tentacles began lashing out in wholly random movements, seeking to catch his essentially invisible opponent as she tried to move in- but it was then that Satsuki began her far more aggressive approach, making herself near impossible _not_ to notice.

The multitude of pressure waves that came at Taro from his left side (quite deliberately aimed _away_ from the school this time) were difficult to ignore, after all.

"SIZE AND STRENGTH MEAN **NOTHING** WHEN THEY HAVE NOT BEEN TEMPERED BY THE FIRE OF SKILL! YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A WILD ANIMAL, NO BETTER THAN A COMMON **STEER**!"

That too.

In response to the compressed blasts of pressure flying his way, near impossible for his massive body to dodge, Taro decided to make it a moot point by flying up and off the ground. It would be much easier for him to dodge these attacks from the air- or at least it would have been, if he hadn't smashed in to something large, sturdy, and metal less than two seconds after taking off, causing him to fall right back to the ground with yet ANOTHER lump rising off the top of his head.

"WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING YOU GIANT UNCOOKED STEAK!" a furious sounding female voice yelled from somewhere overhead, just as a pressure wave smacked in to Taro's nose and forcibly snapped his head to the side.

Satsuki smiled- although Nonon may not have realized it, she'd just made things much easier for her leader. With Taro already reeling from the first hit, the next two struck home as well, forcing a brief drop of his thrashing tentacle guard. It lasted just long enough for a red clad form to fade back in to view and crest Taro's shoulder, whereupon Satsuki ceased her attack. She'd done her part, albeit with some unintentional help- now it was her partner's turn.

"Nice flyin' Taro!" Ranma shouted in to Taro's ear from the spot on his back she now occupied, patting one of the rising mounds that were by now making the cursed Chinese boy's head look like a labour of moles had moved in.

Predictably, the man that would be yeti took a bit of offense to this. Unable to reach back and swat Ranma off with his arms, his tentacles stopped what they were doing and curved in towards their own origins, seeking the person who'd put herself in such a strategically unsound spot.

It was then that Ranma made her move- which Satsuki very distinctly HEARD her make.

"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken Revised! **Fish-Knots Roping Up A Cloven Flyer**!"

...WHAT?

Satsuki watched the redhead's arms blur in to motion, desperately attempting to ignore the ridiculousness of what she'd just heard yelled from Ranma's mouth.

...Surprisingly, this was not too difficult. Evidently it was getting easier with exposure.

A few seconds later, Taro reared back and BWAOOOOH-ed loudly as Ranma jumped off his head, making sure to aim for one of the myriad of already injured spots present there to kick off of. Handspringing off the ground, she landed next to Satsuki again.

...and immediately began to snicker. That had gone near perfectly- Taro's wings had been firmly lashed on to his back by knots made of four octopus tentacles each. This, on top of making all five sets of extremities utterly useless, also gave the giant bull some rather ridiculous looking giant "bows" that stuck out from his back, as if someone had tried to dress up the world's ugliest pet with even uglier decorations. The pigtailed martial artist was willing to bet Pantyhose had never even thought that adding more crap to his curse might just backfire at some point; now he couldn't fly OR use his extra limbs.

Ranma took the moment to look to her partner, only to see Satsuki giving her an extremely straight faced look.

"...what?"

"...that... attack name..."

"Oh. Uh..."

Ranma sheepishly rubbed the back of her head.

"...yeah, okay, the name sucks. I've been thinkin' on that for a while, went through half a dictionary tryin' to make it sound right, but I guess I'll have to keep workin' at it. But octopuses... octopi... whatever, they are fish, right? I at least got that correct, didn't I?"

"No, actually. They're molluscs."

"Damnit!"

"That aside, may I ask WHY you decided to call it that?"

"Well, the original move is- it's supposed to be a play on words-"

"_**BWAAAAAOOOOOOHHHHHH!**_"

Ranma removed her finger from her ear and looked back over to see Taro about one step away from spontaneously combusting in fury. Even through his fur, it was visible that he was practically turning red at this point. His brow was so slanted with anger that his eyebrows had nearly gone vertical, while his eyes were bulging so widely they seemed to be trying to escape his head. Primarily because of this (as well as the aforementioned tentacle bows), he didn't really look as threatening as he was probably intending too, but the sheer amount of rage he was directing their way came through loud and clear.

"Ohhhh yeah, he's about as steamed as he's ever gonna be now." Ranma commented, smiling.

"Good, his judgment will suffer for it." Satsuki noted. "Saotome, I will-"

"Nah, just sit back, I got it from here!" the redhead yelled over her shoulder as she spontaneously rushed forward to meet the now charging bull-hemoth, who currently had perhaps the most severe case of tunnel vision since... half the people involved in whatever Nerima's last big fight was, most likely. Satsuki now almost entirely forgotten, Taro's intention to crush Ranma to paste had gone past a mere desire with this latest humiliation- it would be more accurate to say he had been _subsumed_ by this purpose, that his brain now had room for little else but thinking itself Ranma's death incarnate.

It was perhaps the most open invitation Ranma had ever received.

Were she not suppressing all emotion right now, the martial artist could have laughed aloud as Taro followed her like she was waving a flag in his face, running backwards and flipping away from his revenge driven assault. Without his extra limbs to attack with, his wings to get better angles to attack from, or seemingly any remaining modicum of strategy, it was incredibly simple to dodge Taro's punches, ground cratering though they were.

Meanwhile, Satsuki was puzzled, uncertain as to just what her partner was doing.

'A spiral...? Why?' she privately wondered, uncertain as to whether she should intervene or not. Given the size of the monster, at the center of the pattern Saotome seemed to be creating a clash would inevitably occur. But Saotome had seemed almost ridiculously confident running in, so presumably there was some sort of plan in motion...

Satsuki settled on simply watching for now, preparing to provide assistance if it became necessary. It was not a moment after she came to this decision that Ranma reached the center of the spiral, running directly through Taro's legs in an extremely tight curve to do so.

"Just so ya know, you've been givin' off so much hot chi that you were practically _beggin_' me to use this." Ranma mocked as Taro whipped around to face her. "Ya can't fly anymore, so let's see ya try to avoid this."

An uppercut flew through the air, striking nothing.

Taro sneered as his fist began to descend, Satsuki prepared to blast another pressure wave forward, hopefully it would reach in time-

"**HIRYU SHOTEN HA!**"

* * *

'_Impossible_.'

This was not a word Satsuki Kiryuin used or even thought lightly, having seen and done many things herself that other people would consider "impossible". Nevertheless, it was the only word that came to mind as she witnessed an utterly massive twister spontaneously roar in to existence out of absolutely nothing. The monstrous being near its center, along with a great volume of broken glass, various pieces of tree, a severed chunk of classroom wall, the forlorn remnants of a dining table, and an abundance of other miscellaneous debris was immediately whipped higher than could be seen in to the sky. The cyclone held each object tightly, stubbornly carrying everything it swallowed all the way to its very zenith, while the human figure standing within its eye remained untouched.

Perhaps, Satsuki thought, she would have to consider the old woman's claims of "magic" more seriously.

Regardless, if _this_ didn't end the battle, nothing would. Unfortunate; she had been hoping to strike the ending blow WITH Saotome rather than simply standing at the fringes, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Time to regroup.

* * *

Inside the tornado, Ranma was starting to wonder just how long this was going to last. Sure Taro had been angry, and he'd been leaking hot chi all over the place for virtually the entire battle, but this was a little ridiculous even so.

Thankfully, after almost a full minute's time, the twister began to narrow and slow. Inevitably the gale began to die, and at last it disappeared completely, leaving behind a brief, final gust in its wake. At this moment, Ranma looked up, trying to see if she could figure out which way Taro had been ejected.

-and was immediately smacked in the face by a dead eel.

"What the- oh GROSS!"

Flinging the offending sea creature from her face, Ranma felt her hand brush against something on the tail that wasn't just dead fish flesh. Looking down at the recently severed body part, she noticed a small string tied around the end of the head- not very well, almost as if the tier hadn't really been able to see what they were doing, or been able to do the job with actual fingers, but tied there nonetheless.

"Now what is this...?"

Loosening the knot from the head of the tail, Ranma's mouth fell open as she held up the string and recognized what she was holding.

"Wait, is this a-"

"It is indeed."

Ranma turned to see Cologne pogoing up to her, looking quite bemused.

"Old Ghoul? When'd you get-? Nevermind, maybe you'll know- how exactly did Pantyhose manage ta' find ANOTHER dragon's whisker?! I thought these things were supposed to be practically impossible to find!"

"Now why would I know that?" Cologne shook her head. "I'm not omniscient Son-In-Law, I don't monitor that boy. I think I can make a good guess that this is the reason you haven't seen him in quite a while, however."

"Huh... and I guess this was his plan to get Happosai to change his name this time around..." Ranma held up the harmless looking string, as if to examine it. "Heh, he might have finally come up with somethin' that would've worked. A plain and simple _bribe_."

"You may want to keep that one as a spare, Son-In-Law. If Happy ever finds out that the whisker didn't actually wear off..."

Ranma's expression froze in a painful grimace as she recalled _that_ horrifying incident.

"**Please** don't remind me."

-_Flashback-_

The thankfully still-pigtailed martial artist hadn't exactly been happy upon discovering-

"Saotome."

Ranma was shocked out of this likely-contrived information dump before it could really begin by the sound of Satsuki's voice. Looking towards it revealed the woman herself, her elites back at her side, somehow having gotten back with all four of them before the martial artist had even noticed she'd left.

"Hmm, I see you have company Son-In-Law. I'll leave you two to your own devices then." Cologne quickly voiced before bounding off without another word, briefly drawing both Ranma and Satsuki's attention until she disappeared beyond the crowd.

The crowd that was currently watching THEM, awaiting their next move with baited breath.

"Looks like they're waitin' for the end of the show... we gonna finish our fight now?" Ranma asked, wary of Satsuki's reinforcements.

Satsuki's eyes pierced through Ranma's for several seconds before she eventually shook her head.

"No, I believe we are finished. This conflict is concluded."

"So, you done attackin' the school then?"

"You been paying attention Red?" Nonon interjected, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. "We haven't been doing that since Cow Thing showed up."

"Indeed." Satsuki confirmed. "Feel free to stay nearby, or join the crowd to check on your classmates if you so wish. I have something to announce."

Ranma thought on this a moment before responding. "Alright. Better go check on Akane, at least. We will finish our fight later though, right?"

Satsuki smiled as much as she ever let herself. "We shall."

* * *

"So..." Sanageyama began as Satsuki watched Ranma slip in to the enormous crowd. "We sure did get that done. Now what? I think we can safely say we didn't _win_."

"No, but I would not call this a loss, either." Satsuki replied vaguely, before turning to Nonon. "Jakuzure, you completed your mission successfully?"

"It took FOUR trips, the rest of my uniform's power, and a close encounter with a TORNADO, but yeah, everyone who was on the roof is off."

"Excellent. Inumuta, signal the pilot, we'll be leaving shortly."

"Hmph." Nonon grumbled quietly as Inumuta messed around on his laptop to call the helicopter back. Though not one to question her best friend, she couldn't help but feel her role in all this had been pointless. Why had she even had to grab all those people off the roof?

The conductor briefly looked over at the building that looked as if a war had been waged on its front. And sides. And _insides_.

Really. The school looked FINE. There had been no need for her to do that, the place was totally intact!

It was while she was lamenting this issue that Nonon spotted a trembling figure emerging from what remained of the school's front entrance.

"Uh, Satsuki-chan?" Nonon tapped her leader on the shoulder, just as the figure spoke up. Kind of.

"Y-you!"

The rest of the group turned as one towards the collapsed front of the school, where the bizarrely quiet shout had originated.

"Oh, it's HIM." Sanageyama snorted.

Yes, Gosunkugi was in fact SO unnoticeable that his name did not even appear on the attendance lists. None of the teachers had even realized he was missing. That one student that HAD might want to consider going in to ghost hunting, or some other occupation that could properly hone their obviously keen sixth sense.

The gaunt boy's gaze had remained frozen on Sanageyama as the group observed him, but slowly his eyes flickered over to Inumuta, who was similarly unimpressed.

"A-and you!"

Gosunkugi frantically dug his hands in to his pockets and pulled out the same straw doll he'd dropped earlier.

"Pfft, hey, Inu." Sanageyama chuckled, nudging the boy on his right. "Dunno if you can see it, but that thing has a green hair and a turquoise hair shoved in it now."

"What? Exactly when did- did he spend all this time searching that destroyed hallway just HOPING I'd dropped a hair?"

"Stay back!"

"We're like half the field away from you!" Sanageyama shouted back, indicating the large expanse of land separating them from the school's front.

"I don't care! Stay back!"

"Oh, or WHAT, you'll voodoo us to death?" Sanageyama sarcastically retorted, lifting his hands and wiggling his fingers for emphasis.

"Yeah, I will! I swear I will!" Gosunkugi yelled with less of a tremor than usual, planting the doll against the nearest wall and lifting his mallet.

"The battle is already over." Inumuta stated just loudly enough for Gosunkugi to hear, adjusting his glasses and taking a step forward. "We're not going to-"

"I SAID STAY BACK!"

Gosunkugi swung the mallet forward. This time his aim was true, and the nail sunk in to the doll.

...and kept going right _through_ the doll, out the other end, to strike the wall the doll was being held against.

_tink_

There was a brief moment, not two seconds long, wherein all was utterly still.

And then...

_crk_

A small crack formed.

_crack_

A larger one spread out from that crack by the next second.

_crk__crackcracrk__crackcrcracrk__crack_

...and even larger ones followed, which soon spread throughout the entire wall. The sound began echoing throughout the courtyard, a cacophony of pops and snaps not entirely unlike that of heating popcorn.

"U-uh... um..." Gosunkugi stammered.

A large red whip wrapped around him and hauled him away, just as the first bits of ceiling began to fall. And so it was that after surviving a three floor wide window shattering, a total hallway collapse, foundational compromise via giant purple hat laser, outdoor wall vivisection, a complete frontal cave in due to huge bodily impact, and an extremely close proximity on grounds tornado, Furinkan's destruction was sealed by a weak, deluded moron and a single nail.

Neither of them of very good quality, to be honest.

* * *

Ryoga woke up to the sight of a blue, beautifully clear sky.

Sky. Why was he lying on the ground again?

The memories all came rushing back and in an instant Ryoga was on his feet, shaking off the lingering effects of his recent bout of unconsciousness and frantically looking around for an opponent who had long since left. He noticed Mousse, lying on the ground nearby for some reason, but that didn't particularly matter to him at the moment. Damnit, how long had he been unconscious for?!

Just as his anger began to pick up at what might have happened while he was out, the eternally lost boy's ears picked up on some noise coming from nearby- not that this was by any means a difficult feat, given that said noise was not dissimilar to that of a fairly close by concert crowd mixed with an earthquake, and therefore fairly hard to miss. However, it still didn't seem to be anywhere within his direct line of sight.

Ryoga got to wonder what it was for all of perhaps half a second before a chunk of concrete fell to the ground behind him, causing him to look back over at the school.

The shaking, rumbling, apparently collapsing school.

The shaking, rumbling, apparently collapsing school he was all of ten feet away from.

The lost boy's eyes bugged out of his head as he turned to make a run for it, but before he could really get going, he tripped over the prone body of Mousse, who he'd momentarily forgotten in his panic to escape. Being of relatively-decent nature whenever Ranma, Akane, or really anyone he was personally invested in was NOT involved, Ryoga hurriedly dropped to the ground and started shaking the other boy in an attempt to wake him up.

"Hey! Mousse! Wake up!"

But the Chinese male did not stir. No one could say Hinako's methods weren't effective- Mousse was likely to be out for another hour or so, bare minimum.

Seeing no other options besides leaving the amazon to likely be crushed to death, Ryoga hefted the white robed teen over his shoulder and ran like mad- not noticing Mousse's glasses slip off of his head in the process. Though, he probably wouldn't have stopped even if he had.

The sound of falling concrete reverberated through the ground as Ryoga pushed his legs past the trees in the direction opposite the school. A minute or so later, the sounds of unsanctioned building demolition had ceased, and all was quiet once more. The fanged boy sighed in relief, preparing to set Mousse down and get back to putting his plan in motion.

...until he looked around and realized that, as per usual, absolutely nothing looked familiar.

Cursing, Ryoga began looking from side to side with the vain hope that he hadn't gotten too far away. Given that he had barely even paid any attention to which way he'd run, this was unlikely.

Now, since Mousse was with Ryoga, this might not have been such a problem if circumstances had been a little different. Mousse, unlike Ryoga, can at least recognize that a map of Russia does not majorly assist one in moving through Japan, and that a finger pointing right does not mean go left. Once the amazon eventually woke up, it should have been relatively simple for them to make their way back, assuming Mousse agreed to allow Ryoga to tag along with him as he went.

However, without his glasses, Mousse cannot read. Or see much at all, really. This is why he always keeps a good three or four spare pairs tucked away with his weapons, because despite his vanity, Mousse isn't quite THAT stupid.

But, as it happened, through a combination of Shampoo (pair snapped by chui), tripping over a misplaced broom (pair snapped by body), and walking in to a wall with them perched on his forehead instead of his nose (pair snapped by idiocy), today Mousse had actually managed to run through EVERY spare set of glasses he currently had on hand. Hence he was going to be no help whatsoever finding the two a way back to Nerima.

Thus began the cross country adventures of Pig Head and Duck Brain (TM)...

* * *

As the limp body of Gosunkugi was flung back in to the crowd, the gathered students began to cry out as the top floor of the school fell in to the third- some of them fearful, some of them awed, and some just annoyed ("Hey, my backpack was still in there!"). If Satsuki had been of a less composed sort, her fingers would have been pinched across the bridge of her nose right now.

Well THAT had been unexpected, at least in the way it had happened. She'd done everything she could to avoid that, and still, it had managed to occur. The school was less "conquered" so much as "destroyed", now.

Thankfully, unexpected did not mean unsalvageable. She had still prepared for this possibility, as it had been highly likely. It definitely wasn't ideal, but then again, nothing about this situation had gone "ideally" anyways.

"With me." Satsuki motioned to her four as she turned away from the still-falling school and made for the wall they'd first arrived upon. The crowd parted before her like air before lightning as she jumped back on to the "stage" she'd begun this endeavor on, followed shortly thereafter by her elites.

Ah, yes, this was much better than the first time she had stood upon this wall. Everyone was looking _up_ at her now; it was far easier to affect a sense of superiority this way. Then again, posture and intimidation didn't seem to work on this school's students, and even if they had it would be the wrong approach for what she was hoping to do here, so she'd need to tone it down.

It would still be a good way to grab their attention though.

"**Students of Furinkan High!**"

Despite the lack of Satsuki's signature Epic Backlighting, her naturally commanding voice at such close range was more than enough to immediately have all eyes on her.

"You put up an impressive resistance indeed, but in the end you have still crumbled before us! Look now at what remains, and know that your struggle was futile!"

She gestured with Bakuzan towards the school, which had finally finished its collapse, leaving a nicely sized dust cloud drifting above the rubble.

"However," Satsuki continued in a less harsh tone, drawing the crowd's gaze back to her, "you have impressed us with your resilience. Thus I have decided to extend to each of you an offer."

She paused, waiting for that to sink in. Someone in the throng of students decided to ruin this by not abiding by the rules of dramatic tension.

"What kind of offer?"

Satsuki internally sighed, but announced her idea with the grandeur she felt it deserved all the same.

"The opportunity to attend Honnouji Academy."

The crowd began to whisper amongst itself, while Inumuta briefly choked- did they even have enough ROOM for that back at Honnouji?!- before quickly covering it up and resuming his original position.

"Wait, so you're saying that since you smashed our school, we should come to YOURS?!" some brave soul yelled out.

"That is _exactly_ what I am saying." Satsuki replied evenly. "As compensation for your lost belongings and the necessity of moving, we will provide high class lodgings to each of you. You would all effectively be treated as one star students, if not in actual rank. Perhaps when we have all the required materials, we will actually _make_ you all one stars."

"What does THAT mean?"

"You will find out, should you choose to accept my offer. All pertinent information will be sent to each of your houses, regardless of your eventual choice."

As in, Inumuta would be hacking in to all the necessary records to obtain the students' addresses, and then they'd just send them something in the mail.

"Feel free to take some time to think about it." Satsuki declared, her voice now only just on the sharper side of authoritative. "We will be leaving now- I _suggest_ that all of you do the same. Go home, inform your families of what has happened. Explain that-"

"HEY! HOLD IT!"

Satsuki's gaze narrowed as the girl in the gakuran she'd had Sanageyama guarding pushed her way to the front of the crowd.

"I THOUGHT I was going to get some answers here. But you're talking like you're heading out. Well **I** still don't understand what the point of this was, and you've DESTROYED the school! If I'm not going to get an explanation anyways then I've got no reason not to introduce my spatula to your faces right now!"

The girl looked about ready to jump up and engage all five of them on her own. Luckily, Satsuki had already planned to address this after she'd finished talking to the normal students.

"Your point is fair. To those that we have promised further answers- know that they will be delivered in due time. Circumstances force us to postpone that which we had hoped to do here and now, but rest assured, we will be speaking with each of you quite soon."

Translation- this venture had been absolute chaos from the moment it began up until just now, and Satsuki really needed to settle exactly what she was going to do and say to each of the prospects, bar Saotome and the life fiber disabling woman, before she told them anything.

"That's not-" The brown haired girl started.

"If you wish to accept this offer," Satsuki continued on, forestalling any further protest, "you need not do anything but make your way to Honnou City, located on the island at the center of Tokyo Bay. All will be taken care of upon your arrival."

The beating sound of approaching helicopter blades bore down as Satsuki spoke, causing her lengthy hair to blow dramatically and imposingly behind her. Her pilot had excellent timing; she was just wrapping up and this was an excellent last image to leave people with.

"But be-"

"Ooh, ooh! Can I come? I wanna ride!"

Satsuki looked down at the grade school girl staring up at her- or rather, the helicopter behind her- with wide, shining eyes, and tried her best to ignore it... but found she simply couldn't. Even in the nonsensical context of this school, it was too out of place to ignore.

Wordlessly looking to her four for an explanation, she received a quick, flat response as soon as her gaze moved over Inumuta.

"That would be the woman you told us not to engage."

Satsuki blinked. Once. Twice.

...

She'd deal with it later.

"Be warned!" Satsuki vocalized, continuing on as if she'd never stopped. "This offer is open to all of you, but do not mistake my academy as a place of freedom! Should you choose to attend, your worth shall be tested relentlessly! Your bodies will be pushed to their limits, your wills thrust past the brink!"

"Sounds like how I feel every time I have to chase that old pervert down for my underwear." one girl quietly commented, garnering some snickers and a twitch of Satsuki's eyebrow.

"If you are prepared to weather this trial by fire, then by all means, come." the dictatorial woman plowed on heedlessly. "We will await you at Honnouji."

She turned towards the helicopter, paused, and spoke her parting words with a glance over her shoulder.

"This is your crossroads, the place your lives shall split. You _must_ make a choice- choose **wisely**."

With that, she and her elites stepped back in to the hovering vehicle they'd arrived in. As soon as they were inside, the helicopter rose back in to the air and began heading back in the direction it had come from barely an hour ago. From the right window, Satsuki could see the gakuran girl's slim figure belatedly leaping on to the wall and tossing something small and metal at the copter, but the thrown projectile never reached high enough to hit, proving the endeavor fruitless. Soon enough, the vehicle reached cruising speed, and quickly left what little remained of Furinkan far behind.

"May I ask what the thought process behind that was, Lady Satsuki?" Inumuta inquired, curious, to say the least, as to why she had invited the ENTIRE SCHOOL to transfer to their own. Even if less than a fifth of Furinkan took her up on her offer, it would still be an absolutely HUGE influx of new students.

"When we have arrived back at Honnouji, I will explain my reasons in full, as well as what now needs to be done. But to briefly summarize, I believe their... "unique" conditioning and overall response to events on a scale such as the one we just provided could prove... useful."

Inumuta took a moment to digest that, before nodding in acceptance, if not full understanding.

"I see. Very well, Lady Satsuki. With any great number of extra students the academy will become rather crowded, but I believe we will be able to manage given enough time to prepare."

The cabin fell silent for the moment, no one quite sure what to say about the... _adventure_ that was Furinkan High. It was a couple minutes later, just as the Nerima Ward fell out of site, that Sanageyama finally found a way to summarize his thoughts on the experience.

"...you know, I bet that school is never boring."

"Was." Inumuta corrected.

* * *

AN: And with that, we are done with the first "half" of this story!

...orrrrr not, because as it turns out this still requires an epilogue in order to lead in to the sequel! Said it would end this chapter, was wrong. My bad!

Anyways, some notes ahead! It's the last chapter I can really talk about anything else I felt the need to yammer on about after all, hence this was inevitable, and you probably knew it.

Explanation Corner:

Thanks to some advice from Weebee, I have considerably cut down the size of this particular section. You should probably thank him for that. ^^;

If you're wondering why Hinako seemed to be taking this much more seriously and authoritatively than usual, it's probably because she didn't know how long the energy keeping her in her adult form was going to last, given that she already shot what she believed (rightfully so) to be the majority of it off already in one massive blast. Thus she knew she might just stop caring about any of this at any moment, and needed to get this mess fixed FAST before any of the more normal students got injured.

The dragon's whisker bit will be explained... some time later. Just FYI.

Although it was impossible to fit in to the story proper, Taro had that whisker tied to his tail because he didn't want to risk it getting stolen or lost on his way back to Nerima, as it was far too precious for him to risk either situation. This way, he always had eyes and an instant defense to protect it. This also means he's been in his cursed form for weeks on end- and consequently nor has he bathed for weeks on end. Ew.

Comment Corner:

I hope Ranma's move name made you laugh, because it took a LOT of effort to make it that intentionally silly while still even _remotely_ sounding like "Chestnuts Roasting On an Open Fire". Like, that probably took a couple hours ALONE. Ranma's "went through half a dictionary" line really isn't that far off the mark. I don't even think I pulled off that joke very well- hands up if you only noticed now that I've explained it what that was supposed to be a reference too.

I will be doing my best to do more justice to Satsuki in the sequel. She's out of her element here, ESPECIALLY in this chapter. It's difficult- her speeches, where her "personality" should really shine through, are usually directed as if towards the scum of the Earth. Not so great when you're trying to convince people to go along with you. I know I can do better when she's where she really should be, and thus I shall strive to do so!

As I've said before, the epilogue will come out in tandem with the first chapter of the sequel, and will direct you there. Hopefully I'll be hearing from you there as well!


	9. The Road to Recovery?

The initial fallout of the event was somewhat _less_ spectacular than expected, all things considered.

Oh sure, there were the normal reactions- the school's on call construction company celebrated at the size of the contract they'd be getting, their insurance company did the exact opposite, a brief news segment about some giant mutated bull falling from the sky into the Nakano ward was aired- but really, it was nothing out of the ordinary for Nerima, and nothing particularly public.

But then, true to her word, the day after Satsuki's incursion, each Furinkan student found in their mail a letter explaining exactly what was being offered to them. Included in each, alongside a detailed description of accommodations, expectations, and restrictions, was a photo of Honnou City itself, apparently just to make sure no one confused their destination with some OTHER giant floating city parked directly in the middle of Tokyo Bay. According to the letters, the option to accept the offer would be open for exactly a week, after which it would be closed permanently.

As for how many actually took it up... well, let's go over the options of the former Furinkan students for a moment, shall we?

Option one: they could wait around until Furinkan was rebuilt, and just catch up on the work they'd missed afterwards. This appeared be the most reasonable option, when given a moment's thought. But then, clearing out that much wreckage, putting up a four story tall school from scratch, and reinforcing it to withstand the regular occurrence of superpowered martial arts battles? That was a bit more work than even Furinkan's construction crews, best in the world though they probably were, usually had to do. All told, it was more than likely that half the school year, at minimum, was likely to go by before Furinkan was rebuilt to standard. In which case, the amount of work to catch up on would be tremendous. And when it came down to it, how many students- or teachers, for that matter- actually WANTED to go back to being subjected to the whims of a deluded palm tree man on a daily basis anyways?

Option the second: they could try to commute to the next nearest high school, which seemed like the obvious solution once simply waiting around was crossed off most people's lists. However, that "nearest" school was located fairly far outside the actual prefecture. As were any comparable ones, for that matter. With Nerima's well known reputation for random destruction, schools were no longer built in the area. Besides which, none of them were prepared to take on the entire populace of a completely separate school anyways. Aside from those students with relatives living in one of the schools' general areas (and ones willing to let said student bum off their housing), that option was not particularly appealing.

Option III: they could opt to be homeschooled for the time beahaHAHAHA **AS IF**. Japanese stigma against homeschooling is big enough that most people native to the country aren't even sure of exactly how _legal_ it is. And it's not as if most parents truly have the time or patience for that anyways, especially those of _high schoolers_. Forget I even mentioned that.

And, the final option: they could pack up their bags, mosey their way over to Honnou City (families optional), and attend school at Honnouji Academy, while residing in provided, fairly lavish housing accommodations that they didn't have to pay to live in. Do keep in mind that at least some good portion of Furinkan's student populace defined themselves to varying degrees as "Chaos Spectators", much of their day-to-day entertainment coming simply from watching the lunacy of an average school morning unfold around them. Also remember that besides the impression Satsuki had already personally made on the students, the letters included a picture of Honnou City, which looks a great deal like a giant island fortress of doom, if that island was also the tip of a mountain, complete with enormous swirling clouds rotating around its peak. Sure, it looks incredibly ominous and imposing, but it also looks about as far away from "boring" as you could possibly get.

Not that _everyone_ was looking to keep their high school life quite so "exciting", but taken alongside the ease of transfer, the limited alternatives, and the bandwagon effect (once some of the students told their friends they would be leaving), you tell ME what the most popular option was.

Then again, who really CARES? None of that involved the main characters, or what factors were in play when they made their decisions. No, _those_ were slightly more involved...

* * *

_-Four hours after the fall of Furinkan-_

"Hmm..."

Cologne sat on one of her still closed restaurant's tables, pondering what she should do with the information she'd gathered.

This newly discovered matter, while important, wasn't actually something she necessarily needed to involve herself in. Here in Japan, away from the rest of the tribe, she had the freedom to meddle in and influence just about anything she so pleased. But that didn't make it a good idea to actually always DO that, especially in circumstances like these, where she most certainly did not have a full picture of the problem- only the knowledge that it WAS a problem. Stepping into a situation that had long been in progress already was also generally a dangerous move, even if one was only moving to the "sidelines" of said situation to make sure it was handled properly.

All that being said, this wasn't something Cologne could really afford to ignore. Certainly, these things tended to resolve themselves on their own (at least to her knowledge), but that was a trend, not a guarantee.

There were also her wards to consider. The Joketsuzoku matriarch was still hoping Shampoo would eventually wise up and change strategies in winning over her ever-errant husband, as it should have become clear to her great-grandaughter by this point that what she WAS doing would get no results. But Cologne had been young once too, and Shampoo would be young for a while yet. She would learn from her mistakes, eventually. Ranma was in no danger of being stolen away by anyone else at current anyways, given the fiasco that slapdash wedding of his had ended up being. Perhaps a forced break would be good for Shampoo, if only to give her some time to think things through a little more.

Mousse, on the other hand, was barely even a factor to consider. He was here by his own volition; his actions and decisions were his own responsibility. How any decision she might make affected him was a non-concern.

...hmm, now that she thought about it, just where WAS Mr. Part Time anyways? She would have expected him to be back by now, regardless of his drained state the last time she'd seen him.

Well, no matter. As long as Shampoo was around, he'd no doubt show up eventually.

It was another two hours before, having weighed her options over, Cologne made up her mind, pogoed up to her great-grandaughter's room, and opened the door without knocking. Shampoo looked up from the light training regimen she'd been performing, startled.

"Great-grandmother?"

"Shampoo, stop for the moment. I do believe it might be time for us to start considering a change of venue..."

* * *

_-Nineteen hours after the fall of Furinkan-_

Ukyo stood behind her restaurant's grill, fuming.

All that, and they never even explained why they had been there. They made the school _collapse_, and then they just... left. With promises to explain things to the people that transferred to _their_ school, yes, but that hadn't exactly been what she'd had in mind.

"Miss Ukyo! You have mail!" Konatsu alerted her as he re-entered the restaurant.

Irritably, Ukyo seized the mail from her nominally-hired help's hands, somewhat glad there was no one coming in to eat just yet. She didn't honestly expect many people anyways, given that she wasn't usually open this early, but in this foul mood she almost certainly wouldn't be up to her usual standard of quality, and serving any less to even a single customer was just unacceptable.

Flipping past the junk left only one thing that looked remotely important, a large orange envelope with no return address. Curious.

Moving over to a table, Ukyo slit open the thick package and spilled the contents on to the surface. The top page immediately caught her eye, and she snatched it up to read it over. Her eyes widened as they scanned over the page.

"Wha- what is...?!"

Sitting down the paper with a mix of disbelief and confusion, her breathing quickened as she frantically rifled through the others. Eventually, she came across a note that had been set at the very back of the pile. By the time she'd read to the end of it, she was torn between shredding the page to bits- possibly with the teeth she was currently grinding together- and wondering if she shouldn't be considering what it was offering.

She... she had to think about- no, what was there to think about?! She couldn't accept this! It was would mean a total upheaval of- but if she DID accept it, then she could easily... but the note was from _them_, and it was infuriatingly presumptive, on _principle_ she wasn't going to-

She...

* * *

_-Twenty hours after the fall of Furinkan-_

Twas a morning unrecognizable from any other at the Tendo Dojo, at least upon surface inspection. Very little was out of place- even Akane's bruises had mostly faded away, due largely to prompt application of a cream provided some months ago by the errant Doctor Tofu. If one were to look a little closer, however, they might just have noticed a slightly more_ subdued_ attitude than usual, which owed its presence to a persistent, uneasy feeling of "Well, what now?" which had nested itself rather deeply within the building's foundations at some point. The general sense was that although everyone had noticed it, they were all waiting on someone else to shoo it out and figure out where they were supposed to go from here.

_*ding dong*_

"Ranma, could you get that?" Kasumi called from the kitchen.

"Sure thing Kasumi." Ranma replied, breaking from his morning aerial battle with Genma and avoiding the cheap shot from behind that inevitably followed as he made his way to the door.

The person on the outside step- he had rung the doorbell, but somehow bypassed the gate anyways- appeared to be a teenage boy, for the most part less than notable other than his sour expression and his extraordinarily weird looking track pants.

"Are you Saotome Ranma?" the boy asked grumpily as soon as the door was fully open.

"What if I am?"

"Keh! That's a yes in my book. Here, I was told to deliver this to you in person."

The boy thrust an envelope into Ranma's hands, before abruptly turning around and stalking back towards the gate, hands in his pockets.

Ranma looked at the sealed piece of mail, which was unaddressed, colored a shade of white starker than most envelopes even already were (to the point that he was near sure it was custom made), and emblazoned with some sort of ornate looking red star logo.

Yeah, right. As if anyone ever wrote HIM.

"Uh, I think you made a mistake. I don't _get_ mail, and this is WAY too fancy to be for me."

From behind, Ranma watched the boy as he gave a hugely exaggerated sigh and pulled out some sort of list out to consult.

"Nope, definitely got the right address, and if you're Saotome, then... wait, this is the NEXT place on the list too?!"

The obviously irritated delivery boy let out a groan, quickly walked his steps backwards towards the door, and spun around to shove another envelope at Ranma, who simply raised an eyebrow in response.

"Whatever, makes this easier. That one's for Tendo Akane, just give it to her. Bye for REAL now."

"Yeah, um, who exactly-"

There was a sound like a very large hummingbird taking off as the boy seemed to suddenly blur and vanish, followed immediately by a respectably sized **BOOM **and a shockwave that swept over Ranma's entire body, sending him stumbling back into the entrance of the dojo. He shook it off and checked the step again, only to find it just as empty as he'd suspected he would.

Huh. Fast.

Ranma shook his head, putting the teen out of mind for the moment and returning to the living room, where almost everyone was patiently waiting for breakfast (with the exception of Genma, who was impatiently waiting). Akane and Nabiki both looked his way, staring with slight curiosity at the letters in his hands.

"Mail for you." Ranma said, a flick of his wrist sending Akane's envelope sailing her way. She snatched it out of the air with only a slight apparent stiffness.

"Who delivers mail this early in the morning?" Akane asked as she looked the letter over with a critical eye. "There's no address on this... and what kind of paper is- Ranma, who is this from?"

"Dunno, but the guy who delivered 'em didn't seem too happy about havin' to do it, and he sure wasn't old enough to be the postman." Ranma replied as he sat down and ripped open his envelope, finding a typed page inside. Akane did the same and began to read, her eyes skimming over the paper with increasing rapidity as she went.

"Hmm? What have you got there, Akane?" Soun asked, looking up from his paper for the first time this morning.

Akane said nothing.

"Akane?"

"Tendo Akane. You have been found... _adequate_." Akane read aloud. "We thus offer you a two star position at Honnouji Academy, predicated on the basis that you take lead of a school club, along with the accommodations listed belo- what IS this?!"

"I would assume it's the 'offer' mentioned yesterday Akane." Nabiki answered blearily, still not quite awake yet. "Congratulations. You're 'just good enough' for whatever it is the Devastation Five want you for. Better pack your bags and get ready for school."

"Wait, what is this?" Soun asked, half-confused, half-concerned. "What's this 'Devastation Five'? And what school? I thought Furinkan was destroyed."

"I do believe we went over this yesterday Daddy." Nabiki supplied, yawning as she plucked the letter from Akane's hands to look over herself. "Just before they left, the same woman that demolished Furinkan offered to let everyone move to her floating island micro-city and go to her school instead as a sort of... compensation for what happened, I suppose. It wasn't the most convincing pitch to be honest, but- oooh..." Nabiki's eyelids rose, the girl herself suddenly looking much more awake_. "_I must admit, ignoring that and going on the room and board alone, it looks very tempting..."

"THE PEOPLE THAT HURT MY DAUGHTER OFFERED **WHAT?!**"

Ignoring the hell Soun was raising over the mere possibility of his daughter going somewhere run by the same people who'd injured her and completely destroyed the school she'd attended up until yesterday, Ranma looked down at his letter, comparing it to what Akane had just read out.

Huh... that wasn't what his said at all.

_Saotome Ranma,_

_This is not my normal method of invitation, but as I was unable to properly extend one to you yesterday this will have to do. _

_You have exceeded all expectations I had, and thus I offer you a three star position at Honnouji Academy. This is unlikely to make sense to you as a whole at this moment, but I will say that this is the highest position available at my academy besides that which I myself possess, and is not something offered under normal circumstances. This rank would typically require you to head a division of Honnouji Academy's clubs, but as things stand there is no need for this, making you something of an exception. I have something else in mind, which I will explain to you in person rather than written communication. _

_Though I doubt it makes much difference to you, a three star position comes with benefits that outweigh even those of two stars. For comparison's sake, note that two star housing accommodations include a fully furnished mansion, along with provided weekly income rates starting at upwards of 1,000,000 yen-_

"One MILLION?!" Ranma shouted in disbelief, startling everyone in the room for a moment.

_-and other advantages of a similar quality. Given this, I'm certain I can leave to your imagination what three stars have access too._

_If you wish to accept, come to Hounnou City with all belongings you wish to bring with you. family members included. You have one week._

The bottom of the letter was signed, in near calligraphic script, Kiryuin Satsuki.

As if that alone hadn't opened a whole barrel of questions, there was also a second piece of paper that had been enclosed inside the first, slightly smaller but printed on even fancier looking stationary, which to Ranma meant it was probably more important. Before he could take a look at it however, he was interrupted by Nabiki.

"So, Ranma, what exactly was that yell of 'One MILLION?!' about?" the mercenary girl questioned, sounding quite interested.

"Er... nothing, nothing..." Ranma answered in as innocent a tone as he could manage, which is to say he sounded like he was trying to hide a secret the size of the moon under a 4x4 inch piece of cloth. He knew it too; the whole Gambling King incident had thoroughly proven his inability to effectively lie about anything, but like hell he was going to tell Nabiki what he'd just read. Given the amount of supposedly free money he'd get just for staying there, she'd probably use every bit of blackmail she had in a bid to force him to attend- in fact, Akane's letter must not have mentioned that, since Nabiki had just read that and hadn't said anything. Thank Kami for small favors.

"Reallllly." Nabiki drawled, sounding about as unconvinced as Ranma had imagined she would. "Well then, do you mind if I-"

"Akane, you are NOT to attend that school!"

"I know Dad, this is the sixth time you've said that! I'm not exactly fond of the idea anyways! But you know, the more you say it, the more I'm starting to wonder why you think it's YOUR decision! If I want to attend this school, I will! It's not like it-"

"You DO want to attend their school?!" Soun yelled, wavering halfway between barking and bawling as the thought of his precious daughter leaving him stripped the authority from his voice.

"Oh for pity's sake Dad!"

"Alright you two, break it up." Nabiki cut in. "No need for family drama this early in the morning, don't make me of all people play intermediary."

"He started it!" Akane shot back. "I never even said I wanted to-"

"Akane, please don't go!" Soun wailed.

"DAD!"

Satisfied that Nabiki was sufficiently and conveniently distracted for the moment, Ranma set the first letter on the floor for the moment and began to read the second.

_Destroy this in as thorough a manner as you can immediately after reading it, and do not show it to anyone else._

That was certainly one way to start a letter. Ranma prepped himself to take whatever followed seriously- even if he'd had all of an hour's worth of contact with her, Satsuki didn't strike him as the kind to start a letter like that as a joke.

_Though I can not risk fully explaining this in writing, know that everything I have done and shall do is to prevent the release of a guillotine's blade; one which hangs poised and gleaming above the collective neck of humanity itself. This is __not__ exaggeration. A threat both unknown and unseen by the majority of mankind, originating from the very dawn of human evolution, is poised to strike this world within the year. Should it succeed, there will be nothing left of this planet but scattered, lifeless space debris- the only remaining proof that humans, or Earth, ever so much as existed._

_It is only with the help of those who are willing and able to fight that we have any chance of forestalling the coming apocalypse. Yesterday did not go as planned, as you may have surmised, but it nonetheless served its purpose, as I found what I was looking for: _

_You. _

_I shall put it plainly as I can- I am requesting your assistance in saving the world, Saotome. For this, I need you at my academy. I do not believe I have misjudged you, but the choice remains yours. _

_Will you flee? Or will you fight?_

'...well, that's uh... definitely a more convincing argument than the first one.' Ranma thought, his mind struggling to process the massive bombshell that had just been set, primed and ready, at his doorstep. The first letter seemed to be mostly a bribe, like Akane's apparently was, but this one was... well, no, it wasn't really a threat, it was more a _plea_ honestly. A very elegantly phrased one, which somehow managed to end on a tone of challenge, but a plea nonetheless. The girl he'd met yesterday, actually writing this? Either the situation was just as serious as the letter stated, or-

"Ranma, why are you still reading that?" Genma suddenly demanded, interrupting Ranma's thought process. "You better not be thinking of abandoning your fiancee!"

He grabbed for the piece of paper in Ranma's hand. Ranma quickly snapped it away, and a game of extreme martial arts keep away began.

"Pop, what the hell?!" Ranma objected, shifting the letter to his armpit and batting away a probing palm strike.

"That's an invitation letter like Akane's, isn't it?" Genma growled, feinting forward at the letter again before switching to a stomach blow midway through. "If you aren't planning on being unfaithful to your fiancee, you have no reason to read that!"

"Could you two do this OUTSIDE the living room?!" Akane yelled as she was forced to duck around Genma, who Ranma had repelled backwards.

"Wha- how does that make any sense?!" Ranma shouted back at his father, ignoring Akane for the moment. "And that don't matter anyways, it's mine, not yours! I have the right to read my own mail!"

Ranma kicked Genma into the yard, where he landed on his feet and skidded to a halt before leaping back towards Ranma.

"Boy, you hand that over right-!"

_-gulp-_

The paper was chewed and down Ranma's throat before he even had thought about what he was doing. Genma plowed into the ground, where he looked at his son, stupefied. So did everyone else, for that matter.

"There. Now no one gets it." Ranma declared, crossing his arms. "Happy?"

"I think that may be the most petulant thing I've ever seen you do Ranma, and that's saying something." Nabiki commented.

"Can it Nabs." Ranma muttered under his breath.

"Well," Genma began again, adjusting his glasses as he stood back up and walked back inside, "good! The letter is gone, and along with it I hope any _temptation_ you might have been experiencing. I can't believe you'd even think of it, leaving Akane here while you fool around with some other woman in an entirely different part of Tokyo. Boy, you need-"

Genma cut off as he stared at the floor, causing the rest of the room's occupants to follow his lead and notice Ranma's more or less "official" letter still sitting on the floor.

"Hang on..." Akane started, clearly confused. "If that's the letter, then... what did you just- _ugh_\- swallow, Ranma?"

"Uh..."

Genma reached down to grab for the page, but Nabiki snatched it up before anyone else could, and Ranma internally sighed. At least it wasn't the other one.

_*ding dong*_

"Oh my, someone else? Ranma, you're up already, could you get that?" Kasumi asked once more as the serving of breakfast forestalled any further discussion on the prior matter.

"Y-yeah..."

Well, at least it got him out of the living room for the moment.

As he walked to the door, Ranma reflected on his recent paper-based meal. Why exactly had he even done that? He had no reason to listen to some girl he'd met all of yesterday, especially when she'd _attacked _him as her introduction. Admittedly, roughly half the people he knew had introduced themselves in similar manners, but it didn't exactly engender trust. The information on the note now residing in his gut could easily have been fake, and she had just sent it as a potential backup way to get him to show up at her school if the bribe letter didn't work. But come to think of it, even if it was true, why shouldn't he show it to anyone else? Akane was evidently been invited in much the same way he was, and if they were going to be expected to fight an oncoming apocalypse then shouldn't EVERYONE know? It didn't make any sense.

...still, Ranma trusted his intuition when it came to reading people in fights. It was why he considered the people who had seriously fought him the people he knew "best". And while much of Satsuki was a mystery, one thing had been clear from literally every movement she'd made yesterday- she was the type of person who did everything with a very specific reason in mind, even if it wasn't necessarily clear to anyone else exactly what that reason was. So if she had written to destroy the note and not let anyone else see it, it wasn't on some whim, there was some rationale behind it that was just inscrutable from his point of view.

...although, the rationale could still be she was just _lying_; there was no apocalypse but she wanted him for some other reason, and guessed that if she laid a big enough crisis at his feet-

_*ding dong*_

Whoops. He'd been standing at the door for a good thirty seconds now, lost in his thoughts. He hadn't even gotten to the gate yet.

The sight he found upon opening the door was... well, not what he had expected.

"**ATTENTION THIEVING LITTLE TROLL!"** bellowed several tall, wiry men simultaneously through megaphones, each wearing an incongruous mix of sunglasses, police gear, and what appeared to be rectangular metal suitcases strapped to their backs.

"**We know you're in there!**" they continued, yelling over Ranma's head. "**You are under arrest for the crime of grand theft!**"

Well this was new. Usually it was a crowd of _women_ screaming at Happosai.

"Actually he _ain't_ in there, he took a nice long cross county flight yesterday." Ranma commented. "You might want to look a few wards over. Just follow the screaming horde, shouldn't be too hard to find him."

"**Failure to return the stolen items immediately will result in life imprisonment! We WILL use force if you fail to comply!**"

"Why exactly did you wait until I opened the door if you were just gonna shout at the house and ignore me anyways?"

"**We are willing to let this go without further incident if the items are returned ****undamaged,**** or proper compensation is provided. We will accept literally ****nothing**** less!**"

Ranma stuck a finger in his ear and tuned out the rest of their yelling as it started to more or less repeat itself. If one thing seemed clear, it was that these guys had most definitely NOT dealt with Happosai before. Probably weren't even local, seeing as how they apparently thought this was an approach that had a chance at actually working.

Thirty seconds later, their announcement finished, the man at the front of the group lowered his megaphone and finally looked down to address Ranma.

"You there, boy."

"Yeeeeeah?"

"There is a man who has been squatting in this house for a great deal of time now. You have five minutes to retrieve him and bring him here before we enter of our own accord and search the premises from top to bottom for the relics."

Ranma squinted. Relics. What the heck were they... wait...

...ah, those. He was pretty sure he knew what they meant now, but best to be sure.

"What relics, exactly?"

"Two ancient and very _fragile_ items." the man answered, his tone deathly serious. "Together they possess incalculable historical significance, thus it is imperative that we reclaim them as soon as possible."

"Okay... but more specifically...?"

"The undergarments of Nobunaga Oichi."

...yep, just as suspected. In Ranma's opinion, these people really needed to adjust their definition of just what qualified as "historically important", especially seeing as they were unlikely to be recovering the apparently-revered underwear any time soon.

Ranma shrugged. "Well, sorry, but you guys are outta luck. Like I said, Happosai ain't HERE right now-"

"We are not looking for anyone named Happosai. We are looking for Saotome Genma."

…

Oh.

"So, uh, out of curiosity, why exactly do ya think it was po- er, this Saotome guy that stole them?" Ranma asked haltingly after taking a few moments to process that.

"We initially confirmed his identity from a bar receipt dropped at the crime scene." the man replied. "Furthermore, we checked, and Saotome has an extensive international criminal record, with a laundry list of charges a mile long, none of which he's ever been fully punished for. He's particularly notorious for his _thievery_, from hundreds of counts of dining-and-dashing, to at least a few dozens of counts of breaking and entering, to an unconfirmed but absolutely _enormous_ number of panty snatchings that occurred a couple decades ago."

The man's upper lip curled into a snarl. "And evidently he's returned to form now, though how he could possibly consider the raiment of Lady Oichi to be among the common scraps of cloth he lowers himself to take-"

"Okay, I'm taking over the talking." one of the other men interrupted, sighing long-sufferingly before turning to Ranma. "Look kid, the items were being auctioned off to begin with, so if Saotome really wants them that badly, as long as he pays the buyout price the seller is willing to let him off scot free."

Ranma raised an eyebrow.

"And that price would be?"

"20 million yen."

Ranma almost did a spit take. On air. Yup, no way THAT was getting paid.

"What?! How is the underwear of some ancient dead lady-"

The first man looked ready to lunge at that, and was only stopped by his compatriot's grip on his shoulders. "Sorry about him, he has an... unhealthy amount of respect for Lady Oichi and anything relating to her, so he's been about ready to boil over ever since the 'relics' were stolen. Just go get the guy already, we'd really rather just take the underwear back and leave than go through the hassle of coming in after him, but we will storm the house if we really have too. If only because this guy will throw a fit if we don't."

Frankly it was odd they hadn't already done that if they were actually police, but then again that was seeming less and less likely every second he spent listening to them. Nevertheless, Ranma did as suggested and returned to the house anyways. This wasn't really HIS problem, after all.

He made his way back to the living room and looked out into the yard to find a panda, playing with a ball and holding up a sign proclaiming that it was, in fact, a cute and innocent panda. This might have been more believable if said panda was not still lying in the pond it had just jumped in.

"Hey old man, why're ya in there?"

'No one who comes looking for the Master is ever good news!' read the slightly waterlogged sign the panda held up.

"Well then you're in luck, because they ain't lookin' for him."

The sign flipped. 'Really?'

"Yeah, they're lookin' for _you_." Ranma deadpanned. "There's about six or seven police at the gate demandin' you get your furry butt out there to answer for Happosai's recent theft of what was apparently some sorta national treasure. They're pretty insistent it was you. Have fun with that."

The panda shot up on its hind legs and gestured forward with another sign. 'What?! Get rid of them boy, I had nothing to do with it!''

"No really, that's a good question." Nabiki cut in. "Why ARE they so certain it was him?"

"Eh, when the Old Freak stole those important undies yesterday he left one of pop's bar receipts behind so they'd blame him, far as I can tell." Ranma replied offhandedly.

"Ah, like they did to you with Konatsu?"

"Yep. It's really mostly just the one guy pushin' the rest of them into it though." Ranma finished before turning back to his currently-pandafied father. "Get rid of 'em HOW? They're arrestin' ya either way; they know about everything you've ever been caught at before, and it ain't like I can protest stuff ya actually DID. Your record was bound to catch up with ya eventually old man."

The panda's expression shifted for a few moments before another sign was displayed. 'Then grab your things boy, we're going on a training trip!'

"Why would _I_ need to go?" Ranma protested.

Genma ignored his son and bolted for the stairs, presumably to grab some packs, before being stopped by Kasumi before he could even reenter the living room.

"Now now Mr. Saotome, you're dripping wet. Let me fetch you a towel first."

While Genma remained stalled by the housekeeper's simple request, Nabiki turned to Ranma again. "One moment Ranma, is that really all they said? I was pretty sure I heard something about them, oh, letting it slide if he just returns or pays for the items?"

"Did you also hear how much they cost?" Ranma replied, rolling his eyes. "It ain't like it matters. Happosai still has the underwear, so gettin' THOSE back is a lost cause, and considering the 20 million yen price tag, I somehow doubt pop can really pay for-."

"Oh but he _could_."

Ranma slapped his hand over his mouth far too late, well aware he'd walked right in to that one. Genma turned to Nabiki, making as befuddled an expression as a panda really could and letting loose a confused "Growf?"

"Oh don't look at me like that. I don't mean right _now_. See, although Akane's letter doesn't mention it, Ranma's mentions that the students and families of 'two star positions' at Honnouji Academy get upwards of a million yen per week."

'WHAT?!' read the sign that shot up.

"For free. And Ranma was even offered a 'three star' position. So if he and Akane both go, then..."

Genma didn't even wait for Nabiki to finish before the sign rounded on Ranma. 'Boy, you're going to that school!'

"Gee pop, quite the turnaround." Ranma deadpanned. "WHY the sudden change of heart, I wonder?"

'A son must provide for his father in times of need!'

Ranma sighed as he considered this. Well, it did give him a convenient way to spin going that didn't raise objections from the panda. He wished he'd had more time to consider the whole world-ending thing first, but apparently his decision had been made for him, regardless of what he would've chosen in the end. Which... was really annoying, come to think of it.

"So, Ranma, it looks like-"

Oh no, this was the part where the blackmail started. It was unfortunately easy for him to recognize by now, to the point that he could list off the exact steps. Nabiki would lead into it slow, hang something over his head that he couldn't ignore, he'd resist for a while before eventually ending up doing whatever she wanted anyways, and in the process she'd somehow get _more_ material on him so she could do it all over again later. This had to be cut off before it could begin.

"Yeah yeah Nabiki, whatever." Ranma interrupted as quickly as he could think of a response. "In the interest of speedin' this up, I'll just agree to go now so I don't have to put up with you or pop's efforts to 'persuade' me. Feel free to use the time I'm savin' ya to go convince those guys at the door to lay off for a while instead."

Ranma turned to Akane, who looked unsure what to do or say right now. "Akane, good luck talkin' with your sister when she gets on your case about this so she can mooch off you too."

"Now that's unfair of you Ranma. Just who do you think pays the-"

"Don't really care." Ranma steamrolled on, cutting Nabiki off for a second time. "Mr. Tendo, she's gonna try and convince you too, so if ya really don't want Akane goin', get ready for that. I'm just sayin'."

Soun sputtered, glancing at his two youngest daughters in turn.

"Pop, at least tell Mom where we're goin' so she doesn't show up and start wondering where the heck we are." Ranma finished, seeming satisfied. "Yep, think that's everything. I'm goin' out for a bit before those guys out front crash their way in. Seeya."

Ranma broke away and jumped over the compound wall opposite the front gate before anyone could so much as protest, determined to get away from everyone and just _think _for a while.

* * *

_-Five minutes later (Oh yeah, there were __other__ characters in this, weren't there?)-_

"What?! Ranma darling is _moving_?!"

Kodachi held a hand over her mouth, horrified.

"Is this true, Sasuke?!" Kuno demanded, grabbing the rat faced servant by the collar.

"Y-yes, I swear it is Master Kuno!" Sasuke stammered. "I was listening from beneath the floorboards the whole time! He's accepting an invitation similar to the one you received!"

At this confirmation, Kodachi immediately ran off into another part of the house, while Kuno closed his eyes and smirked, quiet for a brief moment.

"AT **LAST**!"

A _very_ brief moment.

"The foul sorcerer has finally decided to turn tail and flee!" Kuno all but shouted, drawing his ever-present bokken and holding it up to the sun, in a way that would have looked much more triumphant were he not currently indoors. "He has realized how powerless he is before my might! Now Akane Tendo and the pigtailed girl shall be freed from his spell, and will finally date with me!"

"Erm, master," Sasuke interjected nervously, "you do realize that it's possible, even probable, that the _entire_ household is leaving, so-"

"Silence, Sasuke! There is no further need for words! I must savor this moment while it lasts and preserve it in my memory exactly as it is. Do not ruin it with..."

Kuno trailed off. Then again, given that his father seemed intent on rebuilding Furinkan into some sort of luxury Hawaiian-themed vacation spot- nevermind that he didn't own the land, or that said vacation spot would be _in the middle of the city_\- perhaps Saotome had the right idea after all.

Hmm. Now that he thought about it, even though he had only skimmed the letter briefly before dismissing it out of hand, he was certain the offer was open to everyone it had been sent too. Such an arrangement would admittedly be an enormous downgrade in living accommodations, and Saotome was headed there as well, but it _would_ get him away from his increasingly maddening parental figure.

Hmm, Saotome or his father, Saotome or his father...

Well, if he _had_ to choose, then-

A rose was shoved in his face and promptly exploded into powder, taking the choice away from him entirely as the thought dropped away from his mind and his body dropped its way to the floor.

"Lie there for a while won't you brother dear? I have arrangements to make, and I'd rather not be disturbed while making them."

* * *

_-Twenty-four hours after the fall of Furinkan-_

Hinako, currently in her adult form, had come home to find a stack of job forms for a teaching position sitting on her otherwise undisturbed apartment floor.

While she was less creeped out by this than others might have been in the same situation, that didn't mean she particularly appreciated people breaking into her living space, and so she was reading through the sheaf of papers rather coolly. Examining the actual contents brought the discovery that the listed salary was over twice what she made at Furinkan- though, the money was hardly why she worked there, so that made little difference to her. There was also a letter of some sort, clipped over the rest of the pages. It was this that she was currently reading.

_Greetings, Ms. Ninomiya. _

_First of all, I would suggest reading this as an adult if you are not in that form already. If you currently aren't, please put this down and resume reading it later. I'll wait._

_..._

_Taken care of that now? Good._

_We would like to speak with you regarding the rationale behind the incident that resulted in the destruction of Furinkan High School. Our apologies for being unable to provide any answers at the time, but we are willing to provide them upon your arrival, once we have reached a secure location. Yes, I realize how terribly banal that sounds but it is unfortunately necessary, as you may soon understand._

_There is a limousine waiting outside for you. Yes, it has been waiting ever since this letter was placed. It will take you to a helicopter, which will fly you directly to our academy. If you have any belongings you wish to bring, feel free to take them with you- not that you are required to stay, but on that subject, those job forms are also quite real. It may interest you to know that we have already confirmed that a good deal of Furinkan's student body will be attending Honnouji Academy, with an expected increase as the week goes on. For this reason, among others, we would prefer you not decline this offer, and are prepared to negotiate further if you are not convinced. _

_However, if you are declining both the job and the explanation, then please tell the limo driver that, as I'm sure he's horrifically bored by this point._

_Honnouji Academy Student Council Information and Strategy Committee Chair  
Inumuta Hoka_

Well, it certainly seemed as if it was trying to smack of candor, but that didn't mean Hinako could just accept a letter like this at face value. Coming from that group from yesterday, she wasn't even sure if she could trust this to not be some form of trap, doubtful though it was given the letter's method of delivery. If that was their intention, they could have just...

The teacher narrowed her eyes, turned, and briefly scanned the room before continuing.

No, that seemed unlikely. The letter probably wasn't a trick, at least not in that way.

Sighing, Hinako steepled her fingers and thought over the facts. The group hadn't all seemed like delinquents in character, only in actions. Which was technically worse given what those actions had resulted in, but made the invitation here slightly more trustworthy, at least. And she had to admit, she WAS still quite curious what rationale yesterday's incident had been conducted under...

But this still _screamed_ suspicious. There was no "Honnouji Academy" on record so far as she had been able to find, so either it was just that unknown a place- unlikely, considering its supposed location- or its existence was being actively covered up. This actually seemed just as unlikely, again due to the school's choice of locale, but if that was the case then _something_ was clearly up, and it wasn't necessarily in her best interest to try snooping around to find answers. Plus, could she really take time off looking for a new job for this?

Hmm. On the other hand, they did say they would answer any questions she had, and for the meeting itself she could most likely defend herself well enough now that she knew what to expect. She did rather want give the group the benefit of the doubt, and as for her lack of a job... if this worked out, perhaps that would no longer be a concern.

Her mind made up, Hinako grabbed her purse and the job forms before walking out. At the very least, she could at hear them out. And if she didn't like what they were saying...

She palmed a 50 yen coin and smiled. Well. She'd deal with them the same way she dealt with most of her problems.

How lucky she was to have an all purpose answer to things like that.

* * *

A wandering vagrant walked across a field, musing upon the valuable information she'd recently come across. Come across by way of beating up an idiot schoolboy thug, but valuable information nonetheless.

She had her next destination.

"Honnouji Academy, eh...?"

* * *

AN: Well, I DID promise.

I was going about this ENTIRELY the wrong way initially. Some rewrites were required. Well, overhauls more than rewrites. Complete restarts, I suppose you could say. Uh... well, it's out now, right? And you enjoyed it? I hope? Eheh.

If anything struck you as... _off_ about the chapter, feel free to add that in a review. At least one of those things is absolutely intentional, so you might just be pointing out the obvious. Or you could be helping me fix an actual mistake, so that would be cool too.

Anyways, this is the end of Insanity Squared. I must unfortunately break my promise to simultaneously release the first chapter of the sequel, **To Twist The Crimson Threads**, as an extremely difficult couple of semesters prevented me from getting around to it. I will, however, update this with a dummy chapter (with perhaps some teasers?) when that is finally ready to go. Whether you choose to join me there or not, thanks so much for sticking around until now!


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